For example, if a 12-year-old girl were to be impregnated, and her family wanted to keep new child, would she be forced into motherhood?
The victim, in this case, would be too young to put her baby up for adoption or safe-haven against her parent’s or rapists consent. She is also too young for abortion. Not young enough to be a mother though. She would likely be legally responsible for the wellbeing of her child.
On the flipside. No child should be punished for the actions of their father (a rapist), and it would also seem cruel if the baby’s grandparents had no say in the matter.
This could be an interesting issue in American laws.
If her rapist was someone in the house she should be removed from that home. Baby also. Shouldn’t be a question about it. Child is safe, baby is safe. No contact from rapist/ father, uncle whatever. Zero. IMO.
I don’t think she can be forced at age 12 to Mother or be able to at that point.
Is there such a thing as too young for abortion? Is there an age where having an abortion is actually more dangerous than carrying a pregnancy to term?
I am.pretty certain an age 12 mother-to-be is a high risk pregnancy. If she has a responsible parent, I assume they can make a termination decision. Unless they are criminally involved in her condition. I guess an appointed advocate could make her choice after that.
Abortion is murder. It is not legally murder but it definatly is murder.
In a moral/biblical sense, murder is the intentional killing of a human being. A fetus that is still just a cluster of a few cells is still a human being with it’s own DNA that is distinct from the mother’s.
Our DNA is what makes us human beings, not our conscious-awareness.
Abortion is the intentional termination of a fetus, and this intentionally results in the death of that fetus. Killing someone intentionally is murder, therefore abortion is murder.
For moral reasons, the parents of the hypothetical victim might choose to go through with it and have a grand-child.
wouldn’t happen in CA ….the California court would appoint a non parental custodian for a hearing and the judge would likely rule in favor of termination
and would have law enforcement walk them to the door with guns drawn ………
A pregnant 12-year-old is EXTREMELY high risk, and even for minors, the decision to terminate is the mother’s, and the mother’s only. Her parents cannot ethically force her to abort if she doesn’t want to, although legally, I guess they can.
When a girl under about 14 gets pregnant, it’s not uncommon for the pregnancy to be undiscovered until it’s too late for an abortion under ANY circumstances. That’s not unusual at later ages either, but for girls whose cycles haven’t become regular, and who haven’t lost their “baby fat”, they can often go 6 months or more without it being known by anybody if she didn’t have morning sickness.
I’m not sure how relinquishment works, state by state, for minors.
And forcing a twelve-year-old girl to risk her life, AFTER a seriously traumatic event, all because you want a grandchild? So you don’t care if you traumatize her further, all over, as you said, “a clump of cells”?
What’s more important to you, that clump of cells, or your daughter’s life and well-being?
Relax, this is a hypothetical scenario, and I don’t have any kids. This has nothing to do with me or anyone I know.
Also, this scenario probably occurs more often than you think. Many people make choices for religious reasons.
Teen births have declined drastically in America, but such a situation could still happen.
The supreme court says abortion is legal. It’s a right and a choice. At this time your religious fervor doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. If that 12yo was raped and abused and has an unhealthy pregnancy, she is perfectly within the law to have an abortion. Nothing anyone can pray, witness or exclaim can change that.
But it’s not as simple a religious decision as you seem to think. If one has to choose between a course of action that would more ;likely kill their young child and a course of action that would “kill,” to use the pro-life term, the embryo that would otherwise kill her, the decision isn’t so clear-cut. According to pro-lifers, both are children. Both deserve to live. Yet mothers under the age of 15 have a maternal death rate 2.5 times higher than mothers who are past adolescence. Infant mortality rates are also higher.
How exactly is it cruel if the baby’s grandparents ‘don’t get a say’? When one of those grandparents is the incestuous father of this 12yr old rape victim’s child?
That’s some pretty screwed up priorities in my mind.
No. Neither grandparent gets a say.
Yes. 12 yr old gets access to an abortion, for medical safety reasons.
No. The state is NOT likely going to stand by and allow a child rapist to force parenting responsibilities on a 12yr old rape victim.
Indiana has a parental consent law; it also has a judicial bypass. A teenager who is pregnant, and cannot get parental permission, or has a history of abuse, and does not want to tell them she is pregnant, can go in front of a judge and ask for permission for an abortion without her parents’ consent. When the law was first passed, a friend of mine worked for Planned Parenthood, and it became one of her responsibilities to prepare the paperwork for underage girls who came to the agency seeking help with a judicial bypass. She was doing the first one within two weeks of the law going into effect.
I really hope that a 12-year-old who had been raped by her father would get her judicial bypass.