# Parental Consent for Medical Treatment & Abortion **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 22, 2003, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708 "2003-05-22T01:35:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/41 "2003-05-24T00:47:31Z")
On a related issue, what about minors gaining access to birth control without parental knowledge? ---
**Author:** ![beagledave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@beagledave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beagledave)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/42 "2003-05-24T01:05:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by even sven \* > \*\* They deserve to be able to make decisions when it affects them so intamityly, and if they are old enough to schedule an appointment and show up on time are old enough to start taking responsiblity for the control of their physical being. \*\* Oh please. An ability to “schedule an appointment” or “show up on time” is not a demonstration of responsibility or decision making. Most young teens can do both of those tasks…yet most young teens have restrictions on driving (nightime driving…driving with other teens etc…) because there is a recognition that a great many kids at that age don’t make great decisions. These same teens who have great decision making ability aren’t trusted to vote until they’re 18, and aren’t trusted to drink until they’re 21. (The above statements should not be construed as an indictment of **all** teens, but a recognition that society generally recognizes (through laws) that a great many teens do not yet posess the responsibility and decision making abilities that they may have later in life.) ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/43 "2003-05-24T01:41:57Z")
> [@](#): > > These same teens who have great decision making ability aren’t trusted to vote until they’re 18 Voting can wait. An unwanted pregnancy can’t wait. > [@](#): > > and aren’t trusted to drink until they’re 21. I believe this to be unjust. The thought that a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom who is old enough to put his life on the line for his country can come home and be tossed out of a bar because he’s too young to drink and socialize with “real adults” is obscene to me. But that’s a matter for a different thread. ---
**Author:** ![TeaElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@TeaElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaElle)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/44 "2003-05-24T03:17:03Z")
Your thoughts on the drinking age are all fine and good **Blalron** , but getting back on point, there is an illogical inconsistency in the anti-consent position: - Teenagers aren’t equipped to make all medical decisions without parental involvement with the support of an “impartial” third party (like a judge) in all cases. - However abortion is a special case exempt from other considerations, even though the underlying issues of judgment and the need for guidance do not differ when compared to other medical procedures. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Sionach_ > **The procedure today requires nothing more than a vaccuum tube being inserted into a woman’s vagina, and having the uterine lining and embryo "sucked out."** “Nothing more” is one of the grandest understatements I have ever read on this topic in a long, long time, especially on this board. The procedure is painful, loud, seems to go on forever. There’s nothing simple about it. And the vacuum tube isn’t simply in the vagina, it’s passed through the cervix and into the uterus itself, and is used to help dislodge the placenta from the uterine wall – the source of much (though not all) of the discomfort. > [@](#): > > **There is a small chance of uterine perforation and other damage, but the rate of incidence of most major complications is .01 - 1%. Later term abortions come with increased risk and a more difficult procedure, yet are still relatively simple and, again, do not require general anesthetic.** What you’ve provided still indicates that this is an involved surgical procedure, one which should be done with care and precision – and your description is only of the earliest, simplest form – a young girl who waits, uncertain about what to do, can well face a much more painful, much more serious procedure. Risk of uterine injury and perforation is considerably higher, for instance, in a D&E abortion. But all that having been said, the question still hasn’t been answered. If a girl can make a decision to abort and can get a judge’s okay to do so without ever consulting her parents, why shouldn’t she (or a teenage boy, for that matter) be able to make a decision and get a judge’s okay to have plastic surgery, gastric bypass or orthodontic work when their parents refuse to consent or even consider such solutions due to religious or ethical stances, disagreement over their necessity or basic neglect? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/45 "2003-05-24T03:34:33Z")
> [@](#): > > However abortion is a special case exempt from other considerations, even though the underlying issues of judgment and the need for guidance do not differ when compared to other medical procedures. It may seem to be the same issue, but the cold harsh reality with abortion is that there is a risk that the girl will seek out unsafe methods of abortion to avoid detection, or attempt to conceal the pregnancy until the end and then put the baby in a dumpster, or even commit suicide over this. Those risks, when placed upon a mental balancing scale, exceed the parental “right to know” ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/46 "2003-05-24T04:59:46Z")
\*\* > [@](#): > > But all that having been said, the question still hasn’t been answered. If a girl can make a decision to abort and can get a judge’s okay to do so without ever consulting her parents, why shouldn’t she (or a teenage boy, for that matter) be able to make a decision and get a judge’s okay to have plastic surgery, gastric bypass or orthodontic work when their parents refuse to consent or even consider such solutions due to religious or ethical stances, disagreement over their necessity or basic neglect? \*\* I think they probably could. For example, if you were severely disfigured, but your parents disallowed you to get reconstructive surgery, I’m almost certain that you could get it approved by a judge. “Parental rights” can almost always be over ruled by a judge. I believe that parents can withhold some recommended treatments according to their own beliefs if the minor doesn’t put up a fight about it, but I don’t think they can make medical decisions that clearly go against the will of an older minor. I don’t think a parent can force someone to undergo a painful or dangerous optional surgery, or to take specific medications, or to not get blood transplants Which is how it should be (sorry I keep saying this, but as someone that was a minor not too many years ago, it still strikes me as important). A person’s right to decide what medical decisions are made regarding their own bodies trumps anyones (even a parents) right to decide that. Being a parent does not make you the lord of another person’s bodies. Decisions like abortion are best made by the person involved, even if that person is not an adult. ---
**Author:** ![lorinada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5e925/32.png) [@lorinada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lorinada)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/47 "2003-05-24T05:51:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Philly Style \* > \*\*As someone who has worked in the insurance idustry for well over 20 years allow me to state that you are an idiot. Parents get & file the claims information. We won’t even consider a claim that doesn’t have the “named insured’s” signature if the claimant is a minor. > > \*\* Wha…? Is this some kind of Pennsylvania law, or what? I have been on the other side of those claims for just as long, and not ONCE in all those years has an insured, or even a patient, EVER signed a claim form. In fact, except for government payers, even the providers don’t sign them. Or are you talking about claims the patients file themselves? Which, of course, hasn’t been done on a regular basis in twenty years or so? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/48 "2003-05-24T12:23:20Z")
Philly has it exactly right. In the instances that parental rights have been abrogated, it seems to me, they are cases of “society” deciding that a particular moral stance is superior to any the parents might hold. If a parent decides that abortion or birth control are verboten–or other restrictions that are not inherently abusive–why in the world should that be overruled? That’s what parents do: they make decisions for their children. That right doesn’t evaporate because someone else would have made a different, “wiser” decision. Children do not have the capacity to make these kinds of decisions, a fact that is recognized in virtually every circumstance, except those where society has imposed a particular moral stance. Courts effectively allowing that abortion _must_ be permitted are making just such an imposition. ---
**Author:** ![irishbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishbird)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/49 "2003-05-24T14:07:55Z")
There could have been several different ways of dealing with this and yes, as a parent you naturally want to do the best for your child. This includes education on how not to get pregnant and what to do if you do. I know it’s different in the US regarding ages of consent etc but in London a child of 16 is usually capable of making decisions for themselves. If a girl of that age or a year or 2 younger wanted to take the contraceptive pill, she would be given advice on that, responsible sexual behaviour, HIV, chlamydia etc etc, the morning after pill and termination. It’s preferred that she remains sexually inactive until the age of consent but living in the real world, we know that a lot of kids don’t wait for that so we err on the side of caution. Arm her (or even him because boys do seek info to) with the knowledge, make sure the consequences are full understood and review regularly. However, after all that, if a girl becomes pregnant (with or without this knowledge) then surely she should be allowed to make her own decision. Why did she not tell her parents? Would she have been punished or made to keep the baby? I know if that had been me, I would have done exactly the same thing - except I was living in Ireland at 16 years old and would have had to make a journey to London to have this procedure carried out. The girl needs support IMHO. She just needs to get over this now. She’ll carry this with her for the rest of her life so whilst her mum is hurting and angry, her daughter’s probably in need of counselling - abortion counselling and how to deal with an angry parent counselling??? ---
**Author:** ![irishbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishbird)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/50 "2003-05-24T14:10:42Z")
oh, I forgot to say, in London the fact that a child may be considered a minor is mostly irrelevant in cases like these. They are considered old enough to make their own decision but they are also strongly encouraged to involve a parent or failing that, someone who is old enough to come along with them and provide the support they desperately need… ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/51 "2003-05-24T15:11:01Z")
> [@](#): > > **lorinada** said: > Wha…? Is this some kind of Pennsylvania law, or what? I have never, in all the years that I have had health insurance and lived in Pennsylvania, had to sign a claim form. I pay whatever co-payment there is out of pocket at the time service is rendered and that’s the last I hear of any of it. > [@](#): > > **Bob Cos** said: > If a parent decides that abortion or birth control are verboten–or other restrictions that are not inherently abusive–why in the world should that be overruled? Because I would never have stood for my parents ruining my life, my opportunity to go to college, my desire to have a career and a future beyond hillbilly wife and breed mare all because of a broken condom. Because I deserved better than to have someone decide for me that I had to get married and be a mother at 16 or 17 years old and probably not even finish high school. Because that was _my future_, and I wasn’t about to have it taken away from me by someone who wasn’t going to lose out on a chance to leave that state of poverty by making the wrong decision. I would’ve done anything, including cross state lines or do it illegally to not have my parents involved in that one if I’d found myself accidentally pregnant and under 18. ---
**Author:** ![irishbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishbird)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/52 "2003-05-24T15:21:05Z")
well said catsix! **catsix** ---
**Author:** ![irishbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishbird)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/53 "2003-05-24T15:22:18Z")
oops, haven’t quite got the hang of bold-ing yet! lol ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/54 "2003-05-24T16:43:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by catsix \* > \*\*Because that was _my future_, and I wasn’t about to have it taken away from me by someone who wasn’t going to lose out on a chance to leave that state of poverty by making the wrong decision. I would’ve done anything, including cross state lines or do it illegally to not have my parents involved in that one if I’d found myself accidentally pregnant and under 18. \*\* Parental rights do not exist because they are guaranteed to lead to the best decisions. Parental rights exist because parents are in the best position to make informed, mature decisions. Period. Regardless of how intensely the child might feel otherwise. Children have all kinds of great ideas about what is best for them, and they tend to feel strongly about these ideas. That still des not change the fact that they tend to be somewhat sporadic in how mature and responsible their decisions are. That’s why adults are responsible for them. Any of this sounding familiar to you? If you wanted to get married at age 14, regardless of how strongly you felt about it, regardless of the fact that it was “your future,” your parents could rightly have said, “ain’t gonna happen.” Do you feel that the courts should overrule this type of parental decision as well? Your “well-said” rationale–because “it’s my future” and “I really feel strongly about it”–won’t do the trick. Not for any reasonable person, anyway. Parents make all kinds of decisions that affect a child’s future: where the child will go to school, where he/she will live, what religion the child will be brought up in, the very nutrients that will go into the child’s body, etc. The state should not get to interfere in any of these decisions, short of stopping something inherently abusive. If abortion is an exception, it’s because the state is imposing its will on what ought to be a personal moral decision, made by the people in the best position to decide–the parents. I do not cede that authority to anyone else as it relates to my child. I don’t care what your political beliefs are, you don’t get to decide for my kid (or you shouldn’t be able to). As my dear old dad used to say, right or wrong, he got to decide what was best for us. Not me, as a child. He did. That’s how it works. We shouldn’t make exceptions because of political zealotry, because of a blind need for certain rights (but not others) to be absolutely inviolable. ---
**Author:** ![ceyjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3bc359/32.png) [@ceyjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ceyjen)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/55 "2003-05-24T17:34:42Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted minty green_ > **There is no constitutional right to an aspirin or pierced ears.** [smart-ass comment]And where exactly should I look in the Constitution to find the passage guaranteeing the right to an abortion?[/end smart-ass comment] ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/56 "2003-05-24T18:48:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ceyjen \* > \*\*[smart-ass comment]And where exactly should I look in the Constitution to find the passage guaranteeing the right to an abortion?[/end smart-ass comment] \*\* Ninth Amendment: **The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.** Fourteenth Amendment: **No State shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law** The Supreme Court said in Roe vs Wade: > [@](#): > > This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![irishbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishbird)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/57 "2003-05-24T19:14:47Z")
yesssss… my mother made ALL the decisons for me when I was growing up - most of them were to beneft herself and most of them were wrong - none of us kids speak to her anymore - AMEN! ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/58 "2003-05-24T20:39:37Z")
Blalron, way to miss the point, which is, if there is nothing in the Constitution specifically identifying the right to pierced ears or aspirin, the same can be said for abortion. Conversely, if abortion can be supported by the ninth and fourteenth amendments, why wouldn’t pierced ears and aspirin enjoy that same protection? Get it? That the SC looked really, really hard and found the right to an abortion in the Constitution is a tribute to their creativity, not to their constitutional wisdom. Their opinion, which both abandons the need to define the start of life… > [@](#): > > \*\*Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. \*\*…and then _effectively_ defines that very point (i.e., where the state can legitimately prohibit abortions against the mother’s wish to obtain one)… > [@](#): > > **With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the “compelling” point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother’s womb.** …is a tribute to the tortuous logic even SC Justices will use to satisfy a political goal that has no real basis in the Constitution. Per [Justice Rehnquist](http://www.roevswade.org/Dissent.html): > [@](#): > > \*\*The Court’s opinion decides that a State may impose virtually no restriction on the performance of abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy…Nothing in the Court’s opinion indicates that Texas might not constitutionally apply its proscription of abortion as written to a woman in that stage of pregnancy… > > If the Court means by the term “privacy” no more than that the claim of a person to be free from unwanted state regulation of consensual transactions may be a form of “liberty” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, there is no doubt that similar claims have been upheld in our earlier decisions on the basis of that liberty. I agree with the statement of MR. JUSTICE STEWART in his concurring opinion that the “liberty,” against deprivation of which without due process the Fourteenth Amendment protects, embraces more than the rights found in the Bill of Rights. But that liberty is not guaranteed absolutely against deprivation, only against deprivation without due process of law… > > To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature. Conn. Stat., Tit. 20, §§ 14, 16. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion… \*\*And this sums it up nicely, also from Justice Rehnquist: > [@](#): > > \*\*Unless I misapprehend the consequences of this transplanting of the “compelling state interest test,” the Court’s opinion will accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of leaving this area of the law more confused than it found it. \*\* ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/59 "2003-05-24T20:42:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by irishbird \* > \*\*yesssss… my mother made ALL the decisons for me when I was growing up - most of them were to beneft herself and most of them were wrong - none of us kids speak to her anymore - AMEN! \*\* Sorry you had such an awful mother, but excuse me if I don’t use your experience to conclude that everyone else’s parental rights ought to be effectively abolished as they relate to certain very specific decisions that interest our children and us. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708/60 "2003-05-24T20:57:59Z")
> [@](#): > > **Bob Cos** said: > As my dear old dad used to say, right or wrong, he got to decide what was best for us. And when my parents failed to decide in a manner that was best for me, I overruled them by going ahead and carrying out my decisions whether they agreed or not. Being a parent doesn’t mean you have a right to ruin someone else’s life for your own ideals, **Bob**. And if you think that forcing a 15 year-old girl to go through pregnancy and delivery, which are even more dangerous and complication ridden for teenage girls than for adult women, and then deciding that she will be a mother for the rest of her life and miss out on the opportunity to become educated and have a successful career, then you have failed her. When you have the greatest stake in the decision, then you get to decide. That doesn’t include whether or not a baby comes out of someone else, **Bob**. Or would you also say it’s perfectly OK for you to force the 14 year-old girl to be a mother, get married, and drop out of high school because your ‘right’ as a parent is to make bad decisions that will do nothing but damage to someone’s future? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/parental-consent-for-medical-treatment-abortion/176708.md?page=4)