I think that obviously, parents should ideally be involved in the decision. One would hope that a girl would be comfortable enough to go to her parents. But if she’s not, who am I to tell her she should? She knows them much better than I do.
I can’t imagine forcing my daughter, who I love more than anything in the world, to spend nine months of her life carrying a baby she doesn’t want. I can’t imagine how traumatic that must be. And I can’t help but feel that anyone who *would * do that, anyone who values a fetus more than their own child’s happiness and mental health, is by *definition * a bad parent.
In every instance where a parent tries to exert a similar level of control over a teenager’s body.
The difference is this: one motivation can explain away another. It cannot explain away a non-motivational belief. Consider a conversation with our hypothetical mad scientist:
Me: “You’re just doing this for the thrill of it.” (Questioning his motives.)
MS: “No, I’m doing it for science.” (Logical response.)
Me: “You’re treating these people like animals.” (Questioning his beliefs.)
MS: “No, I’m doing it for science.” (Illogical response.)
Look, even if they think they’re doing so out of a regard for human rights–a laughable proposition, IMO–the fact is they’re trampling on other human rights in order to do it. It’s like forcing your child to donate a kidney against his will because you think he’ll be better off in the long run, or because it’ll save the life of someone else. A person who sees his child as a human being, with the dignity and rights that any human deserves, simply would not do such a thing.
Sure it does, because like I said, “meaningfully” depends on context. What is required to make one decision is not required to make another.
You can narrow it down even further: she does.
It lowers the bar for determining competence. It means that when we’re not quite sure whether she is competent (according to whatever basis we have for determining competence), we have to be more willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, because the consequences of overriding her will are so much greater.
Maybe I’m skipping a step. Here it is: the bar for determining competence to make any particular decision is arbitrary and man-made. There’s no label on a person’s forehead that says which decisions they’re capable of making, and there is no “natural” age at which a person becomes capable of making any particular decision; everyone is capable of pondering their situation and saying the words “yes” or “no”. The only difference is whether we’re willing to accept their choice or impose our own. We’ve made up our own rules about whose decisions we’ll accept in which situations.
But because the bar is man-made, we can move it wherever we want in various situations. A pregnant teenager can be given the capacity to make this decision (and in fact, already has it in many places) through the actions of the legislature. And remember, there’s no formal basis for any of these restrictions: different states and countries have wildly varying age limits for all kinds of things, and none of them is more solidly grounded in medical fact than any other. So changing the restriction on this particular decision doesn’t really need any special justification - the restrictions are arbitrary to begin with.
I respectfully disagree; it should be possible for a person without formed opinions to initiate a debate here, I think I may have done so myself in the past.
If you’re aware that there is a heated debate on a topic, or if you just think of something that you realise is bound to be contentious, but cannot make up your mind about it, starting a debate thread for others who do have opinions on the matter to participate in, is a perfectly valid thing to do, IMO.
Well, let me go on record as saying I’m not in favor of lopping off people’s arms. I don’t know if that makes me inconsistent; I’ll have to think about it. But I can tell you I would not murder (or maim) another person to reduce abortions.
Bullet one does the trick. Bullet two doesn’t really encapsulate my argument. I think there are certain decisions that are not within the province of parental authority, but I don’t hold that any scenario would make the child the default decision maker in a circumstance where she doesn’t have the capacity to make it.
For bullet three, yes, I’d say that there is no parental authority to insist on abortion. But it’s not primarily because of the invasive nature of the procedure; rather, it’s because the procedure would kill another human being–a result that’s not reasonable to permit as an appropriate outcome of parental authority (again, IMO). Where I may have thrown you is that I believe that most Americans would not have the stomach to give parents this authority, whatever they think about parental consent to permit an abortion. Whether or not most Americans feel this way based on a logical thought process is another matter.
It certainly does make you inconsistent. When someone has such a straight “no” line on killing, especially when one is not willing to kill to further one’s cause, and then they balk at arm-lopping, that’s a definite inconsistency. You can’t just apply your rationale of life over all to measures you support and not measures you don’t like.
Plus there’s the problem now of your priorities. You’re happy to have the decision on abortion taken out of the mother’s hands and put in their parent’s hands, or the state’s hands, but not for maiming as a stopping measure for abortions. That seems to suggest that you’d prefer a stripping of free will over a stripping of arms, which is in itself somewhat worrying.
Well, you’re assuming minor children have free will. I could make an argument that they don’t, in the meaningful sense of being able to fully understand the long-term consequences of their actions and choosing an action accordingly. My dog doesn’t really have free will, 'cause he doesn’t understand that if he eats all his food now, there will be none when he’s hungry later. He just eats and eats out of animal drives, not free will.
But don’t get me wrong, I’m still very anti-parental consent. Not because of abusive parents (although that does concern me) but mostly because of the fear so many young pregnant girls have. As I said in the pit thread, I’ve met dozens of girls who thought their parents would literally kill them, abuse them, or throw them out of the house if they found out they were pregnant. Whether or not the parents actually would is besides the point: the girls believed they would, and would do anything rather than talk to their parents about being pregnant. They’d run away, or have an illegal abortion, or conceal the pregnancy and smother, drown or throw the baby in a dumpster after it was born. Come on, I’m not making this up - we read stories about this every month in the paper!
All of those things, to me, are worse options than having my daughter get a legal, safe abortion I know nothing about. I’m pretty sure I’d think that EVEN IF I was pro-life. I can go so far as to understand why **Stratocaster **might think running away to live a life on the streets as a teen prostitute and never seeing your family again isn’t as bad as having an abortion. But surely even you, Stratocaster, must feel that an unsafe illegal abortion with its far greater health risks or a murdered born baby are worse evils than a safe, legal abortion, don’t you?
I don’t care if it wouldn’t happen very often. **One **additional dead baby in a toilet or dumpster is too many to justify these laws.
For example, would you feel the same way for a parent who decided on a course of chemotherapy for a child with cancer?
Again, you’re parsing a distinction that matters not a bit for the point on the table, which is your belief that everyone who supports parental consent either believes teenagers are sub-human, holds human rights in contempt, or is a hypocrite. Which is silly, of course. Whatever your position–even if we grant your point about “trampling human rights”–why in the world would this eliminate the possibility of a well-meaning but misguided person?
You may believe this, but it misses the point. We don’t need to keep beating this to death. My only point in calling you on the silliness you introduced is that there are reasonable people who don’t see it your way. They don’t think of teenagers as sub-human, they don’t hold human rights in contempt, and they aren’t hypocrites. This continues to be silly. I have also found as a general rule that one of the best indicators of poor debaters in these threads–on both sides–is the tendency to demonize the opposition. I’ll give you a bit of a benefit of the doubt for a bit more. But I will ask now, if you believe this, why in the world are you willingly in an exchange with such a vile individual?
Um, sure. But the urgency of the situation, the significance of the decision, doesn’t somehow give a girl capacity when she didn’t have it the moment before. A girl has the capacity to make significant medical decisions or she doesn’t. That’s the basis for parental consent.
Okay, but before you weren’t concerned with whether she had capacity or not. You’re now begging the question, though.
No, if anything, the more dire the consequences, the less we would assume she has the capacity–given a general assumption in virtually every other medical circumstance that she does NOT have the capacity. The greater the significance of the decision, the less we’d be willing to cede to someone whose capacity is in question.
Fine. It would still be incoherent if the same girl was deemed to lack the capacity to make most other medical decisions, but possesses it for this one. I’m not trying to be difficult. That’s the nature of capacity issues.
That’s an interesting point. I think they’re two different situations, though; can someone make a choice between options? That’s free will. Can someone correctly identify what those options are and what they would mean? That’s something different; and I don’t think we can say someone doesn’t have recognisable free will merely because they’re more liable to make a bad choice. Adults do that all the time.
Feel free to consider me inconsistent. Of course, it would be a logical fallacy to conclude that my premise is false, even if you’re correct here. Perhaps we pro-lifers really ought to start lopping off the body parts of others. Maybe that will solve the abortion issue. Or maybe some of us believe that violence of this sort is not an acceptable remedy.
Sorry, this is something of a stretch (though I did chuckle that you’re more worried that I support parental consent laws than you would be if I agreed that lopping off a few arms is a good solution to the abortion issue). I’m not “stripping free” will. An underage girl hasn’t the capacity to make the decision, so “free will” isn’t in question.
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but this is an easy syllogism for you if you don’t believe the unborn are babies as well. When you do, the calculus is a bit more complicated. Which is not to say I would be unconcerned with the scenarios you describe.
No, I get that. I do. Intellectually, I get the abortion = murder argument, even though I don’t agree with it.
But even if, for this post and this post only, I assume your position that fetus=baby and abortion is murder, I come up with this math:
running away, life on the street, yadda yadda = extreme danger to my daughter + extreme danger to her child
legal abortion = 1 murder
illegal abortion = 1 muder + extreme danger to my daughter
secret pregnancy, kill the baby once it’s born = 1 murder + moderate to extreme danger to my daughter (no prenatal care, no assistance in labor and delivery, etc.)
So doing the math, it seems pretty simple. If my daughter won’t tell me she’s pregnant, the best option is that she runs away and I never see her again, although her life and that of my grandchild may be brutal and short, . The next best option is the murder of her unborn child through a legal abortion. They only get worse from there.
I suppose, but then you could also make an argument that no one has free will. If adults could fully understand the long-term consequences of their actions and choose an action accordingly, there’d be no divorce. It’s foolish to dismiss someone’s ability to make decisions based on the fact that they can’t predict every possible consequence of their actions.
A teenage child who understands that chemo could save his life and still doesn’t want it? Yes.
I’ve been hinting at this, and I don’t think you’ve responded to it, so let me ask straight out: Do you think parents should be able to donate their children’s blood or organs against their will? If not, why do you draw the line on parents’ control of their children’s bodies at that point?
That well-meaning but misguided person would fall into the third category. He’s a hypocrite because even though he believes in his child’s human dignity, his actions strip that dignity away.
What’s silly is your belief that you can believe something, act in opposition to that belief, and still not be a hypocrite.
This is a forum for free debate, and if someone posts something objectionable, I’ll probably counter it - especially if it’s this vile and inhumane. Your beliefs can’t infect me over the internet, so why should I not have this exchange?
Why do you insist on treating all “significant medical decisions” as one indivisible group?
You might as well say “a girl has the capacity to make decisions or she doesn’t”, and then conclude that since she can’t choose to buy a house, she shouldn’t choose which socks to wear either. Not all decisions are created equal.
Maybe for a decision that has little impact on the person making it, but for one like this, I strongly disagree. We can’t have a third party making this vital decision when we have reason to suspect the person who’ll actually be affected can make it herself.
She has whatever capacity we decide she has. The restrictions are arbitrary and we can change them at any time.
It would solve the abortion issue, if not totally. If doctors have no arms, there will be less abortions. Of course, you’ll get the occasional talented surgeon who can use his feet, but that’d leave your insides smelling pretty bad.
Seriously though, what does count as an acceptable remedy? Killing is out. Injuring another person to an extent greater than pregnancy is out. How about stealing money from abortion providers so that they aren’t able to go to work? Getting someone to lie about being raped by an abortion provider to get them disbarred? Getting a big group of people to stand in front of an abortion clinic door to stop people getting inside? Stealing medical equipment? Where do you draw the line between acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour in stopping abortions?
I’m concerned that you find other methods of halting abortions out of the question, whilst stripping a free choice is.
Since when do underage girls not have the capacity to make the decision? You could make an argument that they are less informed, have less life experience, but not that they aren’t capable of it. I’d agree with you that on average below, say, 11, a child is incapble of making that decision. But above that? Sure. You’re giving teenagers far too little credit.
I agree with this. There isn’t anything magical about the capacity to make a decision. All it takes is permission to make it and responsibility for making it. Someone could claim that I, a 35-year-old woman, don’t have the capacity to make a decision to get an abortion. And, when it’s the goal to make sure abortions don’t happen, that argument does occasionally get trotted out (though not on the Dope, as far as I can remember). We can each come up for arguments about why X person or Y person lacks the capacity to decide. Some because they are too young. Some because they are too old. Some because they are too close. Some because they are too far. Some because they are too religious. Some because they aren’t religious enough. Some because they lack a uterus. Some because they have one. On and on.
The cite I posted above says that a girl can get a judicial bypass if:
“* The minor is mature and sufficiently well informed about her pregnancy options to make the decision without a parent or legal guardian being involved.”
I don’t know if that’s completely accurate, but let’s say that it is. How can the girl demonstrate this? What would it take to demonstrate it? Could I demonstrate it if someone doesn’t want to accept it? If we assume that someone lacks the capacity to decide, we’ll find evidence that they lack it if that’s the decision we want to come to.
As for me, I believe that the teen might make a mistake in her decision, but since she’s the body who has to live with it, making a mistake is her right. Better to suffer from a decision of your own choosing than to suffer at the hands of others.
No, but if I’m not misunderstanding you, you’re extrapolating incorrectly if this is the math you use to set policy. This is the extreme example, correct? Every abortion results in the death of a human being (from some people’s perspective). Your scenario is very rare. Again, I don’t want to suggest that the circumstance you describe is no big deal, no concern. Just commenting on your algebra. Let me know if you think I missed something.
Let’s say a 13-year-old, a frightened kid whom you were certain did not understand the implications of his decision, a kid who tells you in a terrified voice, “No, no, the cancer will go away. I don’t need chemotherapy.” Just trying to triangulate here.
No. I draw the line where the decision is in the child’s best interest, as it relates to that child’s health. Beyond that, by and large, I don’t think the parent has the right to make that decision for the child, regardless of the child’s “choice.”
So, still no possibility of anyone supporting this who isn’t in some way deliberately evil. Gotcha. Again, perfectly reasonable.
No, this would be a straw man, since I have suggested no such thing.
Feel free. But it’s still silly nonsense.
Why, other than possible outcome, would you divide them? Asked differently, how would you distinguish them as they relate to the girl’s capacity to make the decision?
No one is suggesting this, and I’ll assume you’re having a bad moment if you really see this as analogous.
I understand you believe this. It’s still incoherent.
Great. Debate settled. We have rendered the term “capacity” to effectively have no real meaning.
Or maybe some of us believe that violence of this sort is not an acceptable remedy.