If she had a very religious, conservative upbringing then she would probably say the latter, that women have to stay pregnant blah blah blah, but would pretty much take the lesson verbatim from her parents or church group and would not be able to explain why she felt that way. Otherwise, if she had a moderate or liberal upbringing, she would likely (considering she knew what abortion was) equate abortion with something bad and would say something like "well it hurts babies". If she's on the road to becoming a future supporter she would probably still say that, but perhaps would have a dawning recognition about what pregnancy means to the mother and why women might want or need to get an abortion, like "well my friend's mom got pregnant and she's really sad because she doesn't have any money" or something of the sort.

I think that I was 10 years old when I made my first pro-choice sentiment. To my very anti-choice Grandmother.

We were watching some news channel about people who weren't able to take care of their children or didn't want their children. I questioned why the mothers didn't just stop their pregnancies before whatever was growing in them became a baby.

It just seemed logical to me that if women didn't want to be pregnant, it was their body, and they had every right to stop the pregnancy.

It was along the lines of "Mommy's the boss. I can't tell her what to do. No one else can, either."

I didn't know what abortion was when I was ten.

At that age, most kids will be parroting what their parents say. So you could decide to take your character either way, depending on if she comes from a conservative background or a progressive family. If you don't want to go straight to "Mommy says", however, children have a great sense of innate fairness and unfairness. So how her parents explain what abortion is to the girl will probably determine how she feels about it.

For example, if her parents explain to her that abortion is when a woman gets pregnant, but can't have the baby for whatever reason, so she has an operation to remove it...the child would not, I don't think, have any particular objection. As ElleStar said, I think at that point it would be seen as "It's what she needs to do so it's her decision." But if abortion is explained to the child as when a woman gets pregnant but is selfish/evil/immoral/ungodly/w'ev so she kills her baby, she will have a very strong negative reaction to it, feeling probably that it's unfair to the poor baby to be killed like that.

So you need to decide. Did your character's parents explain abortion to her as being about a woman's choice, or about a baby's death? Because no ten-year-old that I know has independent access to news and opinion sources outside the home that would contradict her parents too much, so you're really going to have to operate off of what her parents have told her.

Hope this helps, and good luck with your class on Monday!

Does it need to focus solely on the abortion aspect of PP?

There's birth control, STDs, Pregnancy assistance and information... I suppose, yes, at ten it would all depend on what a child's parents told her or what she could glean from the outside world.

When I was in fifth grade, which I think is near ten, I remember that I had to write a skit about HIV/AIDS. And in it was a little girl named Leslie and her best friends who both had AIDS-- Leslie got it from her friend when they were playing those handclapping games and something about her friend had a cut and so did Leslie... sort of like a "bloodbrothers" exchange of fluids (I was ten, okay?) Best Friend had gotten it from her mom when she was pregnant, and mom had gotten it from dad.

Yes, I was ten-- my science was WAY off, and I didn't want to admit to myself that people make mistakes that hurt people for the rest of their lives. So everything that happened needed to be an accident-- I didn't want to "blame" anybody. I also didn't want to talk about sex in front of my classmates or teacher because I was in fifth grade and, well, sex was off-limits except to moms and dads.

Fifth grade was also the year that school sponsored sex-ed classes started popping up, and we learned about baby development, periods, and emotional/mental/physical health interactions (complete with a multicolored triangle diagram).

How is a 10 year old girl based on an animal? I feel like I'm missing something in that sentence.

Anyway, I think 10 year olds can argue either way, usually based on what their parents believe. I didn't know about abortion when I was 10 but if my parents had explained to me that people should have a choice about growing other people inside of them, I would have been totally able to argue that.

I think everyone is right, a 10 year old will likely just repeat what they've been told. I think if my 10 year old nephew asked me what all the fuss about planned parent hood was about I'd not mention abortion at all.
I'd say something like it is a free or cheap doctors office for women and that it helps women stay healthy and not have babies if they can't take care of babies. I'd probably also tell them that the people who are making a fuss are those that want to force women to have lots of babies.
So in my mind, that is about what a 10 year old would say.

When I was 10, I saw an anti-choice sign and didn't like it. In my mind, the baby wasn't born yet, so it wasn't a baby. No fuss, no muss, no lives lost. My grandma and sister had different opinions (my sister's have since changed). But yeah, I was always pro-choice. Even at that tender age.

I think it would be really interesting for a child to say something like: "PP is where women go to get check ups, and that's good, so PP is good."

Leave the abortion thing out of it because, at least in my opinion, that's the bottom line: Planned Parenthood is good for womens' health. People who are against PP because of abortion alone are missing the all the good things PP does for women.

And if I had a young daughter, and she asked me about PP, I'd probably say something like "That's where the special woman doctors are that help them if they get sick. When you're grown up, I'll take you to get a check up, just like with your regular doctor."

When I was ten, I was aware of abortion because I knew one of my relatives had one. I knew that it was sort of a secret, but she was one of my favorite relatives, so I figured it couldn't be a bad thing.

Plus, I was like one of the other posters in that I thought if it was still in her, it wasn't a real baby yet.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but this sounds like a terrible acting exercise.

Ten year olds are definitely "balanced and thoughtful enough" not to jump on the abortion = bad train. But as other people have said your 10 year old's opinion (and level of knowledge on the issue) will depend a lot on her parents, and on current events. When I was 10 my country was going through the controversy that eventually led to abortion being decriminalized here, so I was very aware of the issue. I'd seen anti-choice protests and propaganda and could identify when they were using misinformation to support their cause. My parents are both feminists and they had raised me to believe that every child should be a wanted child and every mother a willing mother.

Speaking as a former precocious essay contest winning 10-year old, you shouldn't feel any qualms about making your character a feminist and planned parenthood supporter (heck I was an environmentalist at that age as well).

I'm fourteen, and even I don't remember too clearly what it was like to be ten. But I do remember a couple of semi-abortion/reproductive health related memories or experiences that I have from around that time - they might help you somewhat, I don't know.

The first of these memories has to do with a couple of girlfriends I had around that time - they were around the same age as me, and still played with dolls, which I remember e struck me as being awfully babyish at the time. Anyway, they were talking about an informal talk they'd had with their strict teacher at the Catholic school they attended.
Friend: "Do you know some people kill babies in the womb?"
Me: "Whuh?" (Ten years old, remember, here.)
Friend: "Yeah, it's called ab- abortion."
Me: "Oh, but that's not murder. Some people have to."
Friend 2:"Our teacher said it's a really bad thing to do, and there's this photo, where a baby sucks its thumb."
Me: "Yeah, but... "
(END OF CONVERSATION.)

Another experience I remember is from around this time, or maybe a year or so later. It was formal lessons (in R.S - which I kind of thought was strange at the time, but didn't have either the words or coherency to articulate my feelings about why it was so) and we were playing that old 'ethical questioning' game, "Amelie is...", where you come up with an 'Amelie' in various different scenarios - e.g., 'Amelie is a...' 11/21/31/61 year old, school student/college student/businesswoman/nun 'in a...' foster family/steady relationship/marriage with two children/vow of abstinence, 'living in...' Africa/Asia/Europe/North America, 'who feels...' OK/bad/neutral/morally opposed to having an abortion... - and say what you think the right choice, ethical question or descision for that 'Amelie'to make would be. Anyway, after that judgemental role-playing game was over, we were handed around worksheets and pens, and asked to draw various 'lines' on a timeline of fetal development. 'At what point on the timeline is the foetus made up of just nine cells?' 'Up until what point is abortion legal in the UK?' 'When does the placenta start to form? When do the fetus' legs/arms/head start to develop?'; that sort of thing. Haha, easy! I drew lines on the timeline; literally, blink, blink, blink. Then we come to the big question;

'At what point do you believe a fetus develops a soul? Draw a blue line on the chart. (If you do not believe in souls, you do not have to answer this question).'

And I looked down and looked back and down and back again at the timeline, and finally realised that I couldn't say. And I capped the blue pen.

Thank you, little blue line. (There's a phrase you don't often hear, especially where pregnancy and abortion are concerned)

Just my two cents.

Neat idea and good question! I do remember being about 10 and overhearing discussions amongst my family and relatives about sexuality issues, including abortion, and vividly recall being a little bit pissed off that everyone assumed a) I had no idea what they were talking about, and b) had no opinion or insight. I was aware of what abortion was and could imagine that not every woman who got pregnant did so on purpose or wanted to have a baby. I could also grasp that the decision of whether or not to have an abortion seemed like a pretty painful process to go through...I remember thinking that not only was it awful that a woman would be in that position to consider an abortion but also have to deal with the obvious weight of everyone else's opinions on the subject. We had a lot of conservative religious people in the extended family at the time, and even as I child I thought they were very judgemental and blind to their own faults/intolerant of the faults of others.

I think kids know more that adults give them credit for on many topics. Your precocious 10-year old may have some more clear-eyed thoughts on the subject than many ossified adults!

Clarification, I mean "faults" as in the imagined faults of other according to my self-righteous relatives, not that having to consider abortion is a fault!

Incidentally, I agree with another poster who suggested that PP is known for providing women's health care in general, not just abortions. I personally went to the PP in the next town over when I was a senior in high school to talk to someone about contraception options before I had sex with my first serious boyfriend. I thought they were wonderfully respectful, straightforward, and a crucial option for teenagers like me who could not discuss the facts with parents. I still give them money every year...they are my favorite charitable contribution!

Kids don't always parrot their parents, and in general are more liberal than their parents on issues like sexism and racism. OTOH, kids are often more black-and-white than parents, so they would be less likely to argue shades of gray.

My daughters have been a lot more liberal than I am, at least since they were 12, on the abortion issue. They don't even consider it worth discussing, and will say dismissive things like, "That's just nobody's business."

OTOH, they are more squeamish about same-sex issues than I am.

Hope that helps.

I honestly think a 10 year old wouldn't have the slightest interest in the topic.

medical procedures often don't interest children.

unless of course her family has talked about this before (positively or negatively)