Excuse me, Shodan. The reason I do not support mandatory parental notification is because when I was a teenager, if I had gotten pregnant, which would have been by rape, I had every reason to believe it would have been my *parents * saying 'Tough it out, sweetheart - you’re on your own." Remember, my father threatened to kick me out for not being able to keep my room tidy enough and refused to do anything when I was fondled by a man who was more than twice my age.
Tell me, o fellow Christian, how was I “poorly qualified to make responsible moral decisions” when I trusted the father of a woman I took dance lessons from? I was 16 years old, a devout Christian and incredibly naive. While I’d heard that men who took advantage of women existed, I don’t think I qualified as a woman in my own eyes, and I certainly didn’t think I’d ever meet such a man or that he’d think I was worth doing anything remotely sexual with. You may not like it (I certainly don’t), but there are men out there who’ll blame their daughters for tempting men into assaulting them and will consider them morally irresponsible for doing so. My father, thank God, didn’t do that to me, but he did imply I was in the wrong for trusting a man I had no reason to mistrust until it was too late.
I agree that in the vast majority of cases it’s a good thing for a girl to tell her parents if she becomes pregnant and I’ll even concede that getting pregnant when you’re a teenager is a damn-fool thing to do. I don’t believe in having kids out of wedlock and the only reason I still don’t believe in not having sex outside of marriage is because of a failed engagement in my past. When I was a teenager, I was a downright moralistic prude when it came to sex and the encounter with my dance teacher’s father reinforced that attitude. The problem is, I know first hand that there are some rare circumstances under which mandatory parental notification could prove lethal. I was lucky to make it through high school as it was, given my history of suicide attempts. Can you honestly not see how repeatedly being told how stupid, worthless, and immoral I was wouldn’t increase the risk of me committing suicide? Can you honestly not understand what being told what a waste I was even without becoming pregnant did to me? Can you honesly not understand that a teenage girl might have good reason to fear her father? If you can’t, I suppose I should be happy for you. I wish I didn’t understand those things, especially given the way I gained that understanding. I’ve even admitted all along that things wouldn’t have turned out as badly as I’d have feared they would have. My father wouldn’t have really thrown me out as an ungrateful wretch, only threatened to. The problem is, at sixteen, I didn’t know him well enough to know he wouldn’t act on those threats. I do now. In the vast majority of cases, I am in favour of parental notification. It’s because of the tiny number of girls in situations like mine that I cannot morally support its becoming law. If this means that teenage girls have abortions, so be it. Knowing that I would have committed suicide rather than tell my father, I’d say it’s better there be one dead child than two, and, make no mistake, I do see it that way. Not much of a choice, is it?
Stratocaster, you brought up the issue of mental illness. I doubt it will surprise anyone who’s been following this thread to learn I suffer from clinical depression, sometimes severe. While it’s been a few years, I have been depressed to the point where suicide looked like a viable option. Those times make up a tiny fraction of my life, well under 1%, probably (I’d prefer not to run the calculations) less than a tenth or a hundredth of a percent of my life. An acquaintance of mine suffers from schizophrenia. When I’ve seen him, he’s been perfectly capable of making rational decisions about his life, as am I. His illness, I admit, does need to be controlled by medication; mine does not, although it has in the past. I have friends who do need to take medication for clinical depression. They are independent, capable, competent adults who support themselves routinely make decisions about where and how to spend their money and their time, how to earn their respective livings, and, in general, do the same things anyone who doesn’t suffer from a mental illness does. That includes whether or not to have sex, with whom to have it, and what form of birth control to use. Most of them are a lot more responsible about such decisions than some so-called “sane” people I know.
For most of my life, I have not wanted to have children. Among the reasons for this are how difficult my relationship with my father was, my fear of doing no better by my child than Dad did by me, and my concern about passing along the genetic components of clinical depression. Basically, I’d want to do a better job raising my child than my parents did raising me, and I wouldn’t want to saddle an innocent child with the problems I had. I haven’t liked myself much for most of my life, which is why the prospect of having a child “just like me” is much closer to a nightmare than a fantasy. As far as I’m concerned, my decision not to have children is a sensible, rational competent decision. The opinions of others may, of course, vary.
I also have a horror of the prospect of someone taking away my right to make decisions about my life because of my history of mental illness. That fear led me, foolishly, not to contact my therapist once when I was suicidal because I was afraid she’d have me involuntarily committed. That fear was unfounded. As it happens, thanks to changing circumstances, if I learned I was pregnant today (not likely, since I’m effectively in for the night), I would choose to keep the child, assuming there were no major birth defects and both the child and I survived it. That’s because of who I have become, thanks to some major changes over the past few years, who the father of the child would be, and some discussion he and I have had about this very issue. A few years ago, if I’d found myself pregnant and you told me I would have to keep the child because my history of depression renders me incompetent to make my own decisions, well, let’s just say the results would have been highly unpleasant. In some ways, crazy or no, in my late 30s and early 40s, I’d argue I’m more qualified to make my own decisions than some foolish little git in her 20’s because I know myself and my capabilities better. Going back to the OP, if I’d known about my father at 16 what I do at 40, I’d have been a lot more comfortable about telling him about a hypothetical pregnancy. Who knows? I might even have been able to tell him I’m not as worthless as he thinks. 
Trust me, Stratocaster. Crazy people aren’t crazy all the time, or even most of the time and, when their illnesses aren’t ranging, some of them can be downright sensible and competent. Then again, it’s 9:24, I haven’t had dinner yet, and here I am posting! :eek: Maybe I am crazy, after all!
Good night, folks,
CJ
