Because parenthood does not equate to ownership, and because some of those strangers have the power and the right to impose standards of behavior on you towards your children, like it or not. This isn’t the 19th century.
The system? This has not been consistently decided or legislated across the nation. Are you okay with it where the jurisdiction demands parental consent?
Don’t take offense. My point is that parental consent for major medical procedures has been a precedent for a long time, compromised only by the abortion issue. My point is that a pregnancy does not suddenly render the child capable of making decisions, a concern that was an acceptable basis for restricting minors’ decisions in virtually every other significant medical situation. Just not abortion. Pregnancies magically give the child a capacity she didn’t possess if she wanted to get a tattoo. Go figure.
Where do your rights end?
Oh, none taken and to be totally honest, in the interest of full disclosure, I don’t have (nor will I ever) children. My point of view solely comes from some unfortunate victims of molestation that I’ve known throughout my life. As in the case of everyone posting here, I’m sure that you guys wouldn’t have the type of relationships necessary to fulfill this requirement. And no, I do NOT mean that as sarcastic or condescending. I’m serious. That is why I leave birthin’ babies to experts. 
You’d do a much better job than I could even dream of.
Hey, I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies. 
Just to add to what Kimstu said, and on something I said back in the Pit thread on this topic recently; if people for parental consent really did care about helping a child make the right decision, and in getting them all the information they need to make an informed choice, then in every place with parental consent laws for abortion there would be equal laws for carrying the pregnancy to term. It’s not just deciding to have an abortion that’s the tricky thing, it’s making the decision at all. And yet, shockingly, I don’t believe there are any places with abortion consent laws (at least not in the U.S. or in Britain) where pregnancy consent forms are also present. Gosh. :rolleyes:
I’m not for parental consent, for similar reasons to those mentioned above. But if they were law, then it only makes sense to make pregnancy consent forms the law, too. The rationale for one demands the other. And anyone who campaigns or believes in one and not the other is an appalling hypocrite (and probably motivated by pro-life beliefs, but that in itself isn’t bad).
Can you clarify?
This is incorrect. Parents do not always have the right to determine medical treatment for their children. Exceptions include treatment for mental health issues, contraceptive and STD treatments, and Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses’ religious preferences being overridden by court decisions.
You said you don’t care what other people think is best for your child. It’s your right to do what you please. But there are limits to what you can do. Where is the limit? At what point are people allowed to care what is best for your child?
This is a straw man. I did not assert that parents have always, and in every instance, had the right to decide medical treatment for their children.
I dunno. Perhaps where I am making an eggregiously bad decision, as decided against a “reasonable man” standard. As a practical matter, this might be where I’d draw the line, though this still permits for an unethical outcome.
While I mostly agree with you, I can see the teeny tiniest motive for requiring consent for birth and not consent for abortion: the eventual born child.
In other words, making abortion the default if there is no adult giving consent and signing up for the responsibility of caring for the child could have a margin of sense.
However, I am furiously against forced birth AND forced abortion in equal measures.
What if your rationale for this restriction was not in any way related to ensuring a child had adequate information to make a decision she hasn’t the capacity to make? Would you still be an appalling hypocrite?
You said that the right has been “compromised only by the abortion issue.” There are other “compromises” to the right that have nothing to do with abortion. If you did not mean that abortion has been the only dent in that right, can you explain what you did mean?
You’re right, your inference was reasonable. I overstated my position. I believe that parental consent has been a long-established precedent, with few exceptions, which include abortion.
That I would agree with! Thanks for clarifying.
No problem. Sorry for the confusion.
You don’t agree that the desire to avoid forcing an 18+ year legal and moral obligation upon an unwilling subject is not a compelling reason?
The problem there is that now we’d have a system in which major elective surgery is mandatory. Abortions are not without risks themselves, and I would prefer not to have a system in which women are forced to undergo them without their own permission.
That would very much depend. If your rationale could be equally applied to the other option, yet you support one and not the other, then you would be an (for variety!) enormous hypocrite. Adequate information is just the most common example. Another would be creating equivalency with other major surgery.
I can think of only one rationale which would not make you a hypocrite; a need to just make abortions harder to get. Which is a pretty prevalent one, honestly, since all pro-lifers (and some pro-choicers) have it. The problem then, though, is the campaign; I have not heard of a single group of people who wanted a parental consent law, and, when questioned or the law looked at, there was absolutely no other reason given for passing it other than making abortion harder to get (feel free to prove me wrong; i’m prepared to take it back if needed). So while they’re not hypocrites…often, they’re liars.
As far as the apparent contradiction of allowing abortion without parental consent and not tattoos/piercings/whatever… the law is frequently inconsistent when it comes to age of consent issues. For example, a parent would probably be more upset to learn that their daughter has become a porn star than that she had some beer to drink, yet the age of consent for starring in porn is 18 and alcohol is 21. Unless you folks want to make an across the board age of adulthood for everything with no flexibility, there will be some flexibility for various reasons.