How come, except under extreme medical emergency, a hospital that wouldn’t give my daughter an aspirin, would perform a potentially life threatening procedure, abortion, without so much a notification, let alone consent?
Why do I lose all parental rights if my child chooses to abort? Around here, a sixteen year old can’t get her ears pierced without the parent’s approval. If she wants an abortion, strangers will hide the fact from the parents at the minor’s request.
How, in anyone’s opinion, can this be considered just and fair?
Um, I am talking about a minor. There is no confidentiality. As a matter of fact, she can’t sign a consent form herself as that is a legal document. Minors, outside of abortion, can not legally enter into a contract on their own.
Did you ever take a child to an emergency ward? Did they ask the kid to sign anything?
What happens if the girl has parents that would beat the crap out of her or shun her for the rest of her life if they found out she was pregnant and wanted an abortion?
Those sort of conflicts don’t arise over ear piercings.
I thought that most states allowed a minor to get a judge to support her consent, if the minor could prove that her parents would beat the crap out of her. Lawyers? What’s the latest? Haven’t paid attention for a while.
If child commited grand larceny and multiple arson, should we hide all evidence of that and allow the child to live in the same house on the same grounds?
And no, I’m not equating abortion with arson. Simply pointing out that parents may have the same reasons for being concerned about their childs sex lives as they have for being curious about any other aspect of their child’s life. A child’s actions are often the fist indicator of the child’s state of mind. This is particularly the case with teenagers, where communication is often lacking.
To exactly what degree do parents have a right to full knowledge of their child’s actions and the consequences of those actions?
Can Philly Style be an effective parent when there is a system in place designed specifically to prevent her from finding out what her daughters actions are and what the consequences of those actions have been to her daughters health?
Can a parent be an effective parent when they can’t know what behaviour their child is engaging in or why their child is depressed, having trouble relating to boys etc?
How can Philly Style discuss the necessary issues with here child when she doesn’t know they are issues?
I think that in the vast majority of cases an underage girl will inform her parents of her situation. In the rare cases where she doesn’t want to tell them, there’s probably a very good reason why she wants to keep it secret, and I think that needs to be respected.
Unfortunately, the nature of abortion is such that privacy is a major issue. Disagree with the law if you like, but it you can’t tell what the difference is (or why it’s not like aspirin), there’s no point in arguing about it.
And as I already took some pains to point out, I was not suggesting that it is.
In which case the situation is irrlevant to a discussion about “strangers hiding the fact from the parents at the minor’s request”.
Which doesn’t actually address the issues I raised. I’m sure a child caught cheating on a school exam also has good reasons for keeping it secret. Chetaing on a school exam is also not a crime.
Does that mean that parents can act effectively as parents wihthout knowing what their children’s actions have been?
It just seems to me that at some stage parents really do need to know what their kids have been up to in order to provide the support that the child needs.
Sex is not illegal, but it is a massive part of human life. In this case a parent is being kept in the dark, not only about the fact that their child is having sex, but the consequnces of the child having sex. Doesn’t that make it a little hard for the parent?
And the other issue is whether parents have the right to decide what sort of behaviour they will accept from peolpe living in thier house. Do parents have the right to shun/shame children who act in ways they find morally unaccpetable? Would Orthodox Jewish parents have a right to shun a child who insists on associating with Nazis? Should an orthodox Christian family have the right to shun a child having promiscuous sex and multiple abortions? Should any parents be forced to share a house with a serial killer? What level of offensive behaviour are parents obliged to tolerate in their offspring?
The main justification is that if the girl doesn’t want her parents to know, it usually meant that it was the result of an assult, ie the father, step father, uncle etc.
Not to ruin your thread, but if a 15 year old has a child, can she legally raise it? How does she give concent for the future medical needs of that child?
As someone who worked in the health insurance industry for a few years, I can tell you that there are many very serious confidentiality issues with regards to kids. If you have a child over the age of nine, you are not allowed to know about mental health claims they may have made, any substance abuse treatment they may have undergone, or any STD or pregnancy related treatment, even though it’s under your insurance.
Fortunately, there are some instances where individuals’ rights trump those of a parent.
If a 16 year old girl whose parents were Christian Scientists or some other sect which opposes conventional medicine wanted to see a doctor to get treatment of some kind which didn’t involve pregnancy, she could very well face shunning from her family too. But there is no mechanism by which she could get around that, unless her situation was immediately life-threatening. She couldn’t just go to a doctor on her own, nor could she go to a judge and get consent to have her ears pinned back or have a throat culture for strep or get a boil lanced.
This is ostensibly because teenagers are (presumably) still too young, unexperienced and uneducated to make important decisions on their own. They need the guidance and assistance of their adult caregivers – or so we have codified the necessity of parental consent.
As a consequence, it seems completely bizarre that abortion – a surgical procedure which comes with not-so-insignificant risks – should be exempt. Why would anyone imagine that a 16 year old who could not (legally speaking) make up her own mind to have a checkup could make an informed decision about surgery?
I don’t know if I’d go that far. But in quite a few cases of young teens (14, 15, 16) seeking abortions, the father in the equation is someone for whom sexual contact with a girl of that age is actually a crime. Unfortunately, because of the extra thick veil of secrecy around abortion, he is able to pay to conceal the best evidence of his crime and no one says or does anything.
If a 14 year old girl showed up at a hospital with an STD and she said that the person she was having sex with was a 18 year old guy, the hospital would be bound by law to make a report, recognizing that this is statutorily prohibited.
But when that same 14 year old girl is taken to get an abortion when that same 18 year old guy has impregnated her, the cause of the pregnancy is ignored and the girl is treated as if she’s an automagically endowed with the mental capacity of an adult because her ovaries and uterus work correctly.
QUOTE]*Originally posted by emacknight *
**Not to ruin your thread, but if a 15 year old has a child, can she legally raise it? How does she give concent for the future medical needs of that child? **
[/QUOTE]
In most states, in order to avoid this (and other issues) girls who give birth and choose to keep their children are conferred the legal status of emancipated minors, which gives them the authority to enter into basic contracts (like leases), consent to medical care for themselves and their children, receive welfare benefits and so forth as if they were adults. Again, functioning reproductive organs do not an adult make, but this is the “solution” that someone has determined is the best way to deal with this issue. :mad:
Actually children have a lot of privacy, although it varies from state to state. When I turned twelve, the doctor stopped letting my mom into the exam room. When I was sixteen, I started scheduling my own appointments and taking care of my own medication, and although I wasn’t up to anything she’d disapprove of, I don’t think my mom was ever informed about what I was doing. I’m pretty sure minors are allowed a certain amount of privacy and self-determinism regarding any medical decisions. I do not believe a parent could force or withhold any medical treatment from a sixteen year old.
A human being has a primary right to an amount of sovereigncy over their physical being. I really don’t think anyone who is capable of expressing their opinions should ever have decisions about their body made by other people. A sixteen year old is obviously able to decide what they want and communicating it. Even if they are not full on adults, they are not toddlers that are incapable of understand themselves and the world. The decisions aobut their health will primarily affect one person- themselves. They are the ones that will have to forever live with the results of whatever medical treatment they seek out. It seems downright creepy that we would even consider letting other people have control over the bodies of other mentally competent people.
I would guess that, from a legal standpoint, children don’t have much of this “privacy.” Parents (or guardians) can sue on behalf of their children and be held responsible for their actions.
If memory serves, the arguement for underage girls seeking approval from a judge or a court or somebody in a robe and a wig was based on the idea that even if a minor had consented to the procedure, her parents would be able to charge malpractice.
even sven, I suspect that your mom saw insurance forms and bills for your care, even if she wasn’t in the room and the two of you didn’t talk about what went on.
As far as I know, the parents of a sixteen year old can put that child in rehab any time they want to.
At the end of the day, the child/young woman’s health and wellbeing trump the parents’ right to know.
Also: with many of these issues, people are considering it from the viewpoint of nice, "normal"parents with the proper concern for their child.
I raise you the thousands of abusive, uncaring, apathetic, drunk/drugged, violence parents - even those that may be the father of this unwanted foetus/baby, in cases of child abuse.
I am very happy for doctors to be able to treat all minors with confidentiality, to save those with such parents.