How many of you who favor requiring parental consent also favor a parent’s right to force a minor daughter to have an abortion against her will?
How many of you who have inconsistent answers (OK for parental authority to outweigh daughter’s decision if it’s an abortion she wants, not OK for it to outweigh her decision if she wishes to remain pregnant and give birth) have a lucid and reasoned explanation for why it should be that way?
Nevertheless, parental involvement is a must. You can just have the child pick out any physician that he or she wants, for example.
Moreover, the issue is whether the surgery is necessary. Saying that the surgery is time-dependent is circular reasoning, i.e. it implicitly assumes that the operation must be done. If it’s not necessary, then there’s no rush.
But you don’t know if it’s necessary or not until you’ve made your decision. So there is certainly a rush to make your decision - because if you end up wanting one option, it is only avaliable to you for a limited period.
No, it assumes that a decision must be made within a certain time-frame. A decision can’t be avoided.
You were probably reading about Texas. I started a pit thread recently about their new law.
I believe parental consent should not be required, mainly for the reasons others have stated. To require consent is to allow parents to force an 18 year obligation on their children, most of whom are in no position to raise kids anyway. Even if they give the baby up for adoption, you’re still allowing parents to force 9 months of massive, invasive physical burden on their children - and if you’re fine with that, then you might as well let them donate their kids’ blood and organs against the kids’ will while they’re at it. Why not let them sign their kids up for involuntary medical experiments? They’re just teenagers, they aren’t really human beings, right? :mad:
Right, that’s the argument. Those who support consent laws believe teenagers are sub-human, I gotcha.
What if one believes that a certain decision is virtually always an immoral, tragic choice? What if one believes that no one should have the right to deny another being (unborn in this instance) to live?
I believe abortions should largely be banned, except in instances where it could save the life of the mother. I believe it’s an immoral choice (I know you don’t, I’m just explaining, as you requested). So, parental consent issues aside, I don’t support any legal scenario where an abortion choice is permitted (with the exception noted). And I see this as protecting a right that is greater than the right for parents to supervise their children’s medical care. To use an analogy, my right to supervise my child’s medical care doesn’t mean I can kill you for your body parts to transplant. My right does not go that far, though it’s a real right.
That does not mean, however, that the parental consent right evaporates in all other situations where there is NOT a greater conflicting right. In all medical instances where a parent is not making an egregiously bad decision (let’s say, for the moment–since I can’t think of a better gauge–against a “reasonable man” standard) or violating the greater right of another human being, the parent gets to decide. Why? Again, parental consent is based on the concept that children haven’t the capacity to make significant medical decisions. A child who hasn’t the capacity to decide to get a tattoo doesn’t suddenly develop that capacity by becoming pregnant.
Obvious point: I fully understand you (and Revenant) won’t hold the same axioms you see embedded in this explanation, though they are beliefs held by millions of reasonable people (IMO ;)). But I believe it’s consistent and logical, proceeding from those axioms. Revenant, this gets to your point, I think.
Does that clarify?
This apparent contradiction seems a bit incoherent, though. The same girl could not get most other major medical procedures without consent, at the very same age, because she doesn’t have the capacity make those decisions. Pregnancy seems to magically create the required capacity somehow.
They support giving parents a kind of visceral control over their children’s bodies that’s comparable to forcing them to donate organs. Either they think those teenagers are sub-human, or they just don’t care about human rights. In either case, I shudder to think what else they’d allow parents to do to their children’s bodies.
Most other major medical procedures don’t have the same time constraint. If a teenager wants to get a tattoo, she can wait a few years and get it then. Decisions about pregnancy, however, have to be made quickly, and if someone chooses for her, she’ll suffer the consequences for the rest of her life.
So, capacity or no capacity, she has to make the choice herself.
I’m all for parental notification, without the requirement of parental consent. In the event of a charge of parental molestation, the minor should be immediately made a ward of the state and the abortion request granted immediately.
I wonder about the type of parenting that allowed a child to become pregnant in the first place, what type of education did they give their child?
There are laws that make parents get immunization shots,go to the dentist, and have regular medical exams before they start school etc. One needs to look for the betterment of the child.
Perhaps the parents should be held responsible to make sure their children have proper education regarding sex. Of course all children will not follow their parents teaching but I believe in instances where a child is truly loved and feel secure in talking to their parents such things as abortions and deceases can be avoided.
Monavis
Yes, yes, I already conceded this. Clearly those are the only two beliefs those who support parental consent could possibly have. There is no other motivation remotely possible; they could not possibly have their children’s best interests at heart. Those that don’t think of teenagers as sub-humans hold human rights in contempt. I get it. You’ve more than made your case.
This last sentence makes no sense. One has the capacity to make a decision or one does not. The importance or urgency of the matter at hand does not somehow make capacity crystallize where it didn’t exist the moment before. Someone with “no capacity” by definition cannot make a meaningful decision.
Their motivation is irrelevant. The action of exerting this kind of control over another person’s body is what’s despicable.
Furthermore, you’re conflating motivation with beliefs. A mad scientist who subjects unwilling victims to inhumane experiments might be motivated only by the desire for knowledge, yet still lack an appreciation for human rights.
But you’re right, there is another possibility: they’re hypocrites. They believe their children are humans with all the dignity that entails, but they don’t apply those beliefs in practice.
Not all decisions are created equal, and they don’t exist in a vacuum. You can’t speak of the capacity to make a decision without knowing the context in which it’s being made.
Few people would argue that teenagers lack the capacity to decide which colleges they want to apply to, for example. The bar for being able to make that decision is lower than for others. One reason, I believe, is that their choice of college will influence how they spend the next few years of their lives as young adults. Another is that entering college with your age group is a unique experience that can’t really be experienced if you wait too long. It’s important to let them make that decision by themselves, even if we suspect they might not be make it with all the wisdom we have as adults.
Similarly, I contend that the bar for allowing a teenager to make a decision about her pregnancy should be lower than the average medical decision, both because of the massive impact it will have on her body and her life (both as a teen and an adult), and because a mistake now can’t be remedied later. We cannot let someone else override her will on something so important.
It probably did exist the moment before, and in fact it exists in a lot of cases that the law fails to recognize, but that’s another topic.
Stratocaster, thanks for the last post. No, I wouldn’t consider you a hypocrite, appalling or otherwise; I may not agree with your morals, but your position is a consistent one.
But that’s not entirely the end of any wrongdoing. You want parental consent laws purely because you want abortion to be banned. Problem is, abortion is legal, so if you don’t think there’s a chance of getting it banned completely, you want to make it harder to get. Again, perfectly logical.
Here’s the problem, though; *why * parental consent? It can’t be because you want equivalency, because pregnancy is also a case where a minor would have to choose major surgery, and you don’t want pregnancy consent forms. So why make abortion harder to get that way instead of making it harder another way - for example, by trying to ban abortion altogether?
The answer (and I could be wrong) is that the majority of people don’t want abortion banned. It would be much harder to get Roe vs. Wade overturned than it is to get parental consent laws, since many more people think parental consent laws are a good idea than think abortion should be banned. And that leads to the problem that you’re effectively using these people to get what you want. If a situation came up where you were offered full abortion bans instead of your PC laws, you’d betray (for lack of a better word) your organisation and take them. It just strikes me as somewhat dishonest that pro-lifers would hide behind noble words like “children should have all the information” or “minors should need PC for abortion, just like any other surgery” when they *don’t * actually give a crap about those things.
:shrug: You’re the one who introduced it.
In every instance where that control exists, or only this one?
No, I’m simply reacting to your statement. If the irrefutable contempt for human rights and/or belief that teenagers are sub-human are irrelevant, then don’t insert them in the debate.
Parsing the words “belief” and “motivation” doesn’t change the major point here, correct? You asserted that those who support parental consent believe teenagers are sub-human or hold human rights in contempt, one or the other. (You could make this easier by just backing off of what was a hyperbolic statement that clearly can’t be supported.) Whether or not you consider those values “motivation” or simply a related “belief” in the formulation of their support for consent–well, what’s the difference? The point I was reacting to was your assertion that those who support parental consent here can only have these beliefs.
BTW, it’s a bit silly that you continue to hold this position. All these posts later and you can’t make the obvious, logical concession that there are those who support parental consent who do so out of a regard for human rights, and a belief that this is the best way to support them–even if you believe they are badly mistaken in that belief. But that’s okay, I’m amused by the ongoing exchange.
So, you’re asserting that the one other exception are parents who hold their teenager’s human rights in high regard, but deliberately ignore that value–not mistakenly, deliberately, otherwise they wouldn’t be hypocrites–when it comes to abortion. So, there are 3 beliefs possible, and in each one the person supporting parental consent either believes in something inherently evil (i.e., teenagers are sub-human; human rights can be ignored) or deliberately forces an evil to occur, despite a more virtuous base belief. No other possibilities. Gotcha. Let me know if you think of any more.
This continues to be a non sequitur. The earth-shattering importance and/or urgency of a decision does NOT somehow render the stakeholder able to make the decision meaningfully. The girl has the capacity or she doesn’t. In fact, you more or less conceded this when you said…
That same girl, at that same age, is not considered to have the capacity to make other major medical decisions. Becoming pregnant does not give her the capacity. The impact of the decision does not make the girl competent to make the decision (I may have mentioned this before). Your thought process here is illogical.
Perhaps. But there seems to be no outrage in most other instances where the girl is subject to parental consent. Which suggests that people have a gross misunderstanding of what is the foundation for permitting parental consent.
You’re welcome!
No, I don’t think that what I said. I agree that’s a beneficial outcome, but I support the concept of parental consent (with the exceptions already noted) because I believe parents are in the best position to make decisions for their children who lack the capacity to do so. IOW, I support it for the same reason I do when a child has a major illness and decisions need to be made regarding the course of treatment.
BTW, I’m not trying to dodge the fact that I do want abortions banned and that it’s generally a good thing when they are limited. Let that be on the record! (I think it already is.) But that doesn’t mean that’s my logic for believing parental consent is justified.
Yes, exactly. As far as I’m concerned, forbidding a child an abortion is an act right up there with raping the child; somewhat worse, in fact. It shows a complete lack of human decency. A parent who tries to do so should lose custody of his or her children and be sent to prison until they are too old to breed more victims.
Because most other cases don’t involve the same sort of sheer parental evil that forbidding abortion does. You do see outrage at parents who try to forbid their children medical cre for religious reasons.
“Minor” is such a vague word.
Should a 17 year old minor require parental consent? No.
Should a 13 year old minor require parental consent? …No. If you’ve already screwed up enough where your kid is unwilling to come to you for help with something like this by the age of 13, I seriously doubt you will have any useful input on the decision.
Should a 7 year old minor require parental consent? I doubt a 7 year old would be able to understand what was going on without a significant amount of careful explanation.