Something I was wondering this morning...
Whether or not a girl under the age of 18 is allowed to abort without the permission/notification of her parents is varies by state. What I'm interested in is what happens when a girl under the age of 18 wants to give birth (to raise the baby or to let him be adopted) and her parents want abortion? I assume that varies by state as well; I assume the options are the girl is allowed to become emancipated, the girl becomes a ward of the state and/or is assigned a guardian ad litum, or the girl has no rights except those granted by her parents.
Have there been any actual cases brought to a court that have been written about? Does anyone know what their state does?
My assumption is that the states that allow teenagers to abort sans parental notification aren't too interested in helping the girls who choose to give birth (other than offering them welfare for the next 18 years...), but I don't actually know. I have no idea what states that grant parents control over their teenage daughters' medical procedures would do. And I can't run an experiment on myself, as I'm well over 18 (and my parents want more grandchildren).
(This was probably sparked by a Badger Blogger about Gardasil and parental choice vs. state mandates; what happens if a girl doesn't want it and the parents do? There's always someone willing to give a girl sex-related medications/procedures over the objection of parents...why does parental authority only go one way?)
ASIDE: People who don't want health care taken over by the federal government should totally be co-opting/reclaiming the phrase "My body, my choice." The "soda tax" to "fight obesity" is a particularly annoying violation of that principle. To steal a phrase from alexthechick, "Why is it bad for the government to tell me I can't put a dick in my mouth, but good for the government to tell me I can't put a donut in it?"
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5 comments:
This is a good question.
I'd like to say the girl has the right, and the choice, not to abort. However the meme from the "pro-choice" crowd seems to be abortion uber alles, which is why they bitch and moan about Michelle Duggar having 19 kids but blow a gasket if you merely *suggest* abortion might be harmful to women.
I also know (although I don't have time to link it) that there are stories from post-abortive women who were taken to clinics by their parents, given an abortion, and their pleas not to have one went unheeded. I believe there was a case in New York (or somewhere on the East Coast) where the parents actually forced their daughter into the car to take her across state lines for an abortion because they didn't like the baby's father was black (so abortion AND racism...nice people, huh?). She, thankfully, escaped and had the baby as far as I recall.
why does parental authority only go one way?
Why? Because parents - the nuclear, traditional family unit - is the biggest threat to the Nanny State (socialism). A cohesive family unit is less likely to rely on government assistance (because there's actually a FATHER there to support the family), more likely to raise children to be productive, healthy adult citizens, and is less likely to embrace the notion of government as Mommy & Daddy. This is why the left eschews marriage (which feminists call "oppressive") in favor of "cohabitation" (but, ironically, lobbies for gay "marriage"...even though it's a supposedly oppressive institution). Anything and everything to destroy the cohesive family unit...
Also, conservatives - by and large - have more children than liberals. You're really likely to (eventually, even after teenage/college rebellion) end up embracing ideologies similar to your parents...which means sheer demographics favor conservative ideologies.
Which is why liberals want such a stranglehold on schools and children's programs...they don't want to have kids, but they're smart enough to realize that if they don't make them, they have to INDOCTRINATE them in order to keep their voting bloc intact.
With Gardasil, I'm guessing (again) that parents' rights would trump if they wanted their daughter to have it, but not the other way around (Texas tried to make it mandatory and got slapped down big time).
As for "my body, my choice" - yeah. I noticed that too, a while ago. Sex leads to STDs, as well as unplanned pregnancies, two things which cost money to treat at the doctor's office, so you'd think liberals would be all over taxing the hell out of condoms to curb dangerous behavior. But not sex.
*nodnod* Yeah, I get everything you're saying... I just find it weird that people are supposed to believe parental authority is good when parents want the abortion and bad when they don't (then again, 52% of voters will apparently believe anything...). Also odd that the assumption is that the parent will always forbid the daughter to abort if notified of her intentions.
But I don't know what, say, Child Protective Services is legally required or allowed to do if a girl who doesn't want to be forced to abort calls them up.
I've been getting in fights on Facebook over that whole "promiscuity leads to problems that people expect insurance/Medicaid/charity to pay for, but fat people are the only people who should be forced to pay more taxes because their 'behavior' (as if your body is a 'behavior', good grief) costs everyone money" bullshit. I have no idea how you tax sex (if you tax condoms, people will just have sex without them, making the infection rates worse), so I'd settle for not punishing people for falling outside the (not a measure of health by any means) height-weight chart. But seriously, drinking Coke is worse than one night stands? Baked goods are a threat to society and need to be discouraged like alcohol? It's bizarro world out there. I had no idea I knew so many idiots from my meatspace life.
But I don't know what, say, Child Protective Services is legally required or allowed to do if a girl who doesn't want to be forced to abort calls them up.
I don't know, either. It'd be interesting to find out. But given that protecting children from their abusive aunts (Christopher Thomas) is beyond their capabilities, they'll probably short circuit or something...
In a liberal's world, black is white (wait...that's probably a hate crime now, don't report me), up is down, right is wrong is it makes sense to me that liberals would think parental authority is good when parents want the abortion and bad when they don't.
But seriously, drinking Coke is worse than one night stands? Baked goods are a threat to society and need to be discouraged like alcohol? It's bizarro world out there. I had no idea I knew so many idiots from my meatspace life.
Yeah, this doesn't make sense to me, either. I'll amend what I said above: it's sex uber alles. It's also ironic liberals crack down on bake sales in schools but INSIST kids need free condoms because they're going to have sex, anyway. Like they can't take $5 to the local gas station for some Ho Hos or Twinkies...
Like they can't take $5 to the local gas station for some Ho Hos or Twinkies...
They can...which is why they have to be stopped.
(Never ate that stuff growing up, since my grandmother lived nearby and baked constantly. But I spent a lot of time riding around on my bike looking for pop cans to buy candy.)
They can...which is why they have to be stopped.
Well, then I say we trade. Take the Twinkies away from me, stop plying kids with condoms then taking tax dollars to pay for the abortions and STD treatments.
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