Yes. A responsible adult needs to be involved in medical decisions affecting a minor.
Because the patient is a minor, obviously.
Unfortunately, your tendency to assign imaginary motivations to anyone who questions the Great Goddess Abortion might be affecting how it sounds to you.
Well, obviously since every father who wants even to discuss the possibility of other options is a child-molesting, abusive rapist, if the bitch gives him any lip, smack her. Duh. :rolleyes:
Actually, it’s the other way around - all the pro-abortion types want to interfere in the parent-child relationship for abortion in a way they wouldn’t for anything else.
So - not mature enough for that, but mature enough to get an abortion alone. Funny, that.
Please define “responsible adult.” Parent does not infer responsible adult obviously, if there’s a 14 year old about to become one and you don’t consider her responsible enough to make her own decisons. Would you agree that any child above the age of 16 is responsible enough to make decisions regarding her own reproduction?
Unfortunately, they’re not imaginary. The abortion issue is a very emotional one and everyone has an opinion on it, either for or against. It is very difficult for most people to remain calm and dispassionate about it; I imagine even moreso for a parent who has just found out their child is pregnant. Can you explain to me why you feel every mother or father who finds out his daughter is pregnant will be able to put aside their personal feelings, remain logical, and think not only of what is best for their child, but also what their child feels is best for themselves and then make a decision based on that? Are you really expecting me to believe that no parent will impose their own personal opinions on that decision?
So, IOW, a teenager should be able to have the procedure done without the parents ever even knowing it. Correct?
Some questions:
Does the logic that “she is the one who will be most heavily affected means that her say should count for everything” apply to all medical procedures? Should she be able to ( I put these in general order of lifelong impact)
Get her ears pierced
Be prescribed and take medication from a doctor
Recieve psychological counseling, including hypno-therapy
Get a prominent (e.g. facial) tattoo
Get her tubes tied
Donate a kidney
Opt for experimental procedures
without her parents even knowing what’s going on? If not, why is abortion different? I’m not asking just to be a pain, I’m honestly trying to understand the philosophical parameters of your position
To go even further off the scale: suppose a 17 year old convert to Christian Science is diagnosed with treatable cancer, but decides that she does not want treatment and will pray her way out of it. I assume you believe that the doctor should tell her (agnostic) parents for precisely the reason that “they can use that ‘discussion’ to pressure her” … but how does that square with “she is the one who will be most heavily affected means that her say should count for everything” and the parents have no right to even be informed?
Does this work both ways? If a 15 year old is raped, made pregnant with a fetus/child that will be born with massive deformities requiring lifelong care, and decides that she will deliver and raise this child, do you fully support her right to make this choice with zero parental input?
Is there an age limit for this at all? Does a twelve-year-old have the same absolute freedom? Should this girl have had the right to get an abortion with zero parental input or even notification?
Again, I’m not trying to be obtuse; I assume we would agree on these extreme hypotheticals, and I want to find out at what point we differ.
Why do you think that every daughter would put aside *her *feelings and be logical? ISTM that the emotional nature of the situation calls for more people to be availible to offer input, instead of telling a frightened, often immature 16 year old that every bit of the responsibility is hers.
Honestly, my own feeling is that if (and please note this is not something I advocate) the decision were totally, completely out of the teenager’s hands and entirely decided by parents, the abortion rate for teenagers would go up a LOT.
So, should no one ever light a candle because the house might burn down? Should people be prevented from flying because there might be accident? If I turn down the wrong street, should I have to follow it until the end because that was the choice I made?
Most instances of sexual intercourse do not result in pregnancy. Accidents do happen, and that is why abortion needs to stay available.
SaintCad et.al, if you are so worried about your daughters having an abortion without your knowledge, TALK TO THEM ABOUT THE CHOICES BEFOREHAND. Be open, let them know that you will support them in their decisions. Let them know that they can come to you with a problem, if one occurs. The parental notification law should not be needed for families with good communication between the parents and the daughters. It can only cause strife when there is bad parent/child relationship.
It is all hers; bringing the parents into it just takes away her power to deal with the problem, while leaving her still stuck with the responsibility.
Aside from the last two, I would say the situation you presented don’t come close to the decision on whether or not to bear and raise a child. Should that decision be “yes,” literally every decision affecting her life after that will have to be made to accomodate that child. Donate a kidney? Certainly, if there were no forseeable complications, the risk was as low as the risks associated with a safe clinical abortion, and she understood how entirely it was going to affect her life. Opt for experimental procedures? Same criteria. Will there be medical complications afterward? Are the risk of those complications as low as clinical abortion? I realize you’re going by the axiom that anyone could die due to any medical procedure performed, but there are risk factors involved for each procedure, and death and sepsis and other complications are different for every medical procedure.
Again, this is apples and oranges. In this scenario, the girl is choosing to not be treated for what will be in all likelihood a fatal disease. No one is choosing to die when they choose to have an abortion.
Yes. It’s her choice. I don’t know why any woman would choose to bring a child into the world that way, but it’s still her choice to do so. My personal feelings and politics don’t enter into what she believes is the best thing to do for herself and the fetus she’s carrying. I hope she’s got a boatload of money, though.
This is where it gets more complicated for me. I do believe that there is such a thing as “too young.” 12? Certainly too young, and both the pregnancy and the procedure present serious problems that the average 12 year old won’t be able to comprehend. My opinion would be, probably somewhere between 14 & 16.
Okay, well, unfortunately we can’t word the law to the effect that “most 16 year olds are legally able to obtain abortion without asking their parents, but there are exceptions depending on maturity.” There will always be exceptions as to whether or not it will be the right choice, and I asked that question specifically because a defined age limit had been discussed in a previous thread we’d both participated in. I couldn’t recall his response.
No one is saying she shouldn’t go to her parents. I think she should, and I would hope that she would if she were frightened and needing guidance. But that should be her choice, not the court’s, and no physician should be forced to make that call. And she has to make the choice because it is her body, and she is using it as a functioning adult. That is the responsibility that goes with the privelege. And considering the fact that she will be making a lot of important choices regarding her own child, should she choose to keep it, it is far too large to take out of her hands. No one should have a choice that will affect them for the rest of their lives forced on them without any input.
No. It applies to medical procedures where there is a time limit and a reasonable expectation that a hefty chunk of the populace will only accept one answer.
You mention parental “input.” I’ve already commented on this, but what “input” will parents who picket Planned Parenthood have that their daughter doesn’t already know?
And, again, there are other medical treatments available without parental consent, including sexual and mental health issues. Why are those particular things different? Because a hefty chunk of the populace is completely freaked out by them. Where there are massive stigmas attached, privacy becomes much more important.
In order to give your knee a rest, let’s rephrase. What if her *father * wants her to have an abortion, and her *mother * wants her to carry to term? Are you able to form an opinion of what should be done now? While her parents are battling it out, her window of opportunity is closing.
That’s simply not true. If the default position weren’t to do what the girl wants without parental consent, then there wouldn’t be such a push to pass laws requiring it.
Of course; any line will be bad for some individuals on both ends of the maturity scale. The problem lies with the fact that we must draw such a legal line somewhere. If I understand you correctly, your general belief is that line should be lower: that at around 15 or so, youths should be able to make all major medical decisions (eg, abortion, donating a kidney) and the parents should have no say whatsoever. In many ways, I think this is a defensible position; in some ways, I believe we as a society infantilize our teens needlessly.
But I feel compelled to ask another question: do you extend this to include all the rights and responsibilies of “functioning adults?” ISTM that if we’re going to say a 14-16 year old can decide to donate a kidney or have an abortion, it logically follows that can also decide to sign a legally-binding contract, be tried and prosecuted as an adult, join the military, or be legally kicked out of the house by their parents and so on. “15 is the new 18,” as it were. Does this not follow?
But adults, absent mental illness, have the right to decline treatment; my point is, that if we’re granting the absolute right to consent to medical treatment, must grant the right to refuse medical treatment at the same age.
But this is where I think we have to be realistic about what kinds of young people we’re dealing with. I think many women, including many who are active in pro-choice politics, look at teen pregnancies and imagine themselves at age 17; I’m not sure that’s a helpful way of approaching the problem.
I will freely concede that most young women of those ages are able to handle their sexuality, to understand consequences and make healthy choices – which is why most sexually active teens don’t get pregnant. When you talk about teen pregnancy, you are talking almost by definition about teens who have shown they are not handling their sexuality responsibly in regards to abstinence/prophylactics. Yes, I realize that’s a broad generalization; I think its broadly true, though.
The honors student headed for college is often very much a “functioning adult;” she’s also likely choosing her partners wisely and/or using protection. The ones getting pregnant are far more likely to be emotionally wounded and needy, without bright career prospects, and from dysfunctional families that do not offer role models and/or parenting assistance; that’s also the kind of young woman who is most likely to have very unrealistic ideas about the demands of parenting and its effect on her life.
Parental involvement – I do not necessarily say consent – seems prudent to me because while it may embarrass or discomfit those in the first class, it can povide great help or protection to those in the second.
Do a significant percentage of parents picket? I was under the impression that was a very small sliver of the population.
Well, currently there is no line. If I understand the mechanics correctly, this particular facet of the argument is the main reason why there is no clear cut line. Where do we stop? If we put an age limit on abortions and say 16 is old enough, what about treatment for cancer, or open heart surgery, or AIDS treatment, etc. Add to that what jsgoddess said earlier; abortion is not the only medical treatment which doesn’t require parental consent. Not only does therapy not require parental consent, the therapist has a responsibility to their patient (underage or not) to not disclose details of the patient’s treatment to anyone without the patient’s consent.
Hmmm…
There are several legalities which arbitrarily (IMO, anyway) define maturity. 21 to buy alcohol, 18 to vote or join the military, although with parental waiver they can join at 17, and of course the age of consent varies wildly from state to state. If consent for sexual relations or marriage can be accepted as 14, why then can we not accept that that is also old enough to make decisions regarding one’s reproduction? I’m not even going to bring emancipated minors into the mix.
It has nothing to do with that. To me, it doesn’t matter if she’s 16 or 40. As far as I’m concerned, it’s her body and her choice. Her reasons don’t come into play, here.
Eh…yes and no. I don’t have any hard numbers to back up the assertion I’m about to make; it’s purely anecdotal. When I worked for Planned Parenthood long ago and far away, what I found most often were teenagers who were not so much irresponsible as uneducated. I think the fact that we insist that all sexual education come from the home and then refuse to teach our children about sex is just plain bad parenting. We are not giving these kids the tools to understand their bodies. As a result, the information they’re getting is gossip and unreliable crap from their friends about rhythm and pulling out and misinformation about condoms and it makes me so angry I could just scream. If we would take responsibility for actually teaching our kids sexual education we wouldn’t be seeing the number of teen pregnancies we see now. And waiting til they’re 14 is useless. That’s my personal rant, I apologize for dragging out the soap box.
Absolutely. Parental involvement is key. In fact, the better the communication between parent and child, the less likely a teen pregnancy will occur. But you cannot force disclosure of this information without the patient’s consent.
Although I’m certain that many teens who get pregnant have neglected to protect themselves, or have perhaps used birth control imperfectly, there’s also the fact that no birth control is 100% effective, and teens are unbelievably fertile.
And as for the wounded and needy young women from dysfunctional families that don’t provide them with role models, aren’t they exactly the ones whose parents should be left out of it? How many opportunities should we give them to fail these girls?
So by your logic, parents should not have any rights over what a minor girl does with her body viz. ear piercing, tatoos, scarifiaction, boob jobs, etc. since medical consent = slavery.
Oh, and since you didn’t like my first rebuttal of grades not killing anyone: Ryan Watts.
No, the equivalent would be forcing a girl to get tattoos, scarification, boob jobs and ear piercing.
:rolleyes: Your arguements would be more impressive if you actually explained who you are talking about, not that it matters. There is no world wide movement to terrorize and kill people over grades; there is over abortion.
I’d be OK with that. Someone that age understands pain and suffering, and has the capability to decide whether or not they want to go through both in order to fight a terminal illness.
So that means you have a cite for the claim that most pregnant teenagers are those who are ignorant and irresponsible about handling their sexuality?
And when I was at the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for Health Care, his girlfriend was pregnant.
His daughter was born with two weeks to go in the program. He quit that day.
So, throw me a cite for your claim about their emotions and maturity, eh?
I think it would be a very small percentage of all parents, but probably a decent percentage of the parents who are so insistent on consent laws.
Most of us don’t get too upset when we aren’t asked for consent for something we would have said okay to. The parents who are most upset are the parents who would deny consent. I do make an assumption–that when a girl has parents who are that set against abortion, she knows it. Maybe that’s an incorrect assumption. I am willing to be convinced it is. But, to me, if a person’s views don’t have any nuance, getting their “input” is a pretty simple matter of remembering what they’ve said in the past.
But no advocated forced abortions, merely consent to get an abortion.
You made a claim that people do not get killed over minor’s grades and I have showed you two examples where your statement was wrong. But I see now that you have changed you story to say that there is no wholesale killing of people over grades - so don’t roll your eyes at me because you have to change what you said from the first time to make it more accurate after your first statement was shown to be wrong :rolleyes: