Really? Because there are abusive parents, you would suspend the rights of all parents? Here’s what I posit: Most parents (a large majority) are fine, upstanding people who care deeply about their children and will just do the right thing.
There are parents who have killed children over their elementary school grades. Unless there’s a fail-safe way to ensure this won’t happen, do you want grades kept from all parents? If not, why?
Not following your math here. Can you clarify?
One of my problems with this entire thread is this:
Abortion, while tolerably safe when done medically, still carries risks. The popular image of a ‘safe legal abortion’ is not quite true. Women do die, or suffer permanent lifelong effects, from ‘safe, legal’ abortions. Yes, even when using RU486 for the chemical option. Now, of course the same can be said of lots of ‘safe’ and very common surgeries. Infant circumcision has been known to lead to death, total emasculation and sexual reassignment, glans amputation, necrotising fasciitis, and other horrible outcomes. Vasectomy has been known to lead to chronic, untreatable pain, and castration. Plastic surgery can have some pretty awful outcomes, just look at Michael Jackson. Bariatric surgery/lap bands can lead to death (actually the rate is apallingly high for this) and other outcomes.
There is a reason children under the age of 18 are not allowed to walk into a doctor’s office and ask for lap band surgery or for that reason, circumcision, plastic surgery, or vasectomy: because there are risks; they may be manipulated by medical personnel with an agenda of their own; they may not understand the risks fully or may have a raging case of “I’m invulnerable” going on.
Also of course, children under the age of 18, unless they are emancipated minors, may not enter into any legal contract, not even to open a bank account, without parental permission. We’ve all heard the stories of kids who are expelled from their school for taking an unauthorized aspirin at school. Or a candy that looks like an aspirin. Why? Because they have no legal rights. They are minors.
I understand the whole ‘abortion is is a privacy thing’, except that it seems to stand alone, a bizarre legal exception to every other law on the books regarding minors and their rights. And merely because it is abortion.
I wanted to address something Der Tries said: "If you forbid her an abortion, you are asserting your ownership of her, like she was a dog or pig.|
What about parents who force their daughters to have an abortion ‘for their own good’? Hell, when I was 17 and thought I was pregnant, my father gave me these two choices: Get an abortion. Or get out.
I turned out not to be pregnant (and couldn’t have been, but I was remarkably ignorant in those days). I was prepared, however, to ‘get out’ (I had extended family who would take me in) rather than be forced into such a thing. Was he not “…asserting his ownership of me, like I was a dog or pig”? If not, why not? Where are the statistics about how many teenagers who choose abortion, and the factors involved in that choice? Who is choosing for them? Do people really believe those girls are making those decisions in a vacuum, of their own free and considered will, with full disclosure of all facts, risks, and options? For that matter, how many of them are bullied into it by the father of the child? How many of them do it because they are abruptly abandoned by the child? What percentage of those girls were actually molested by their fathers, or raped by a stranger or acquaintance, and conceived?
A good law is made with a mind to the larger community and is not based on the exceptions, the rare cases - though a good law also makes room for exceptions, to be considered individually. What is this law based on?
Of course, I meant to say ‘…abruptly abandoned by the father of the child’. What I get for editing on the fly.
This simply isn’t true; abortion stands out because (as has been pointed out innumerable times here) being forced to carry a child to term carries with it an 18-year commitment, something that is not true of any other medical procedure used analagously in this discussion. The argument is not that abortion is “a privacy thing”, nor any such trite, glib statement. The concerns are manifold; firstly, that a child can be forced into a long term commitment by disinterested parents through no consideration for her own wellbeing; second, that forced notification might discourage them from seeking medical advice in the first place; and thirdly, that the notification laws are motivated through a pro-life desire to go decision-shopping until someone is found who will refuse the abortion, to name but three. These are not nebulous reasons, but well-founded ones. None of them are reducible to “but it’s abortion” as you claim. Abortion raises some critical issues because of what it is, certainly, but these are independent of its status as a political hot potato.
A filthy thing, undoubtedly, and something that should be opposed wholeheartedly. But who here, opposing the parental consent law, has advocated or defended any such thing? What relevance does it have?
Exactly. Chotii, you know from experience that parents are as likely to force a child to have an abortion as they are to force her to have a baby. Do you still think that the decision should be up to them?
We’re not talking about “suspending” the rights of parents, we’re talking about taking rights away from their children.
When I posted I used the words “declined the abortion” when I actually meant “weren’t allowed to have the abortion”. That’s my fault, and would perhaps change the tenor of your answer. I would certainly concede that children don’t always know what’s best for them. I would then argue that this doesn’t make them ideal parents. And when the choice is taken out of their hands, the odds are somewhat worse that they’ll be at peace with the result 20 years later, I’d imagine.
Of course it doesn’t come up much. What I’m trying to determine is whether you think that anyone has a right to use anyone else’s organs if that person is responsible for their condition, or if you see uteri as somehow unique in terms of the owner’s discretion of use.
I’ve spotted a flaw myself, so i’ll try it again. I am very bad with maths, though, so if i’ve made more mistakes please, point them out.
72 percent of people supported parental consent laws.
55 percent say parents should be required to approve a minor’s abortion request.
The mistake I was making was assuming those 55% are all within the 72% - and while that’s a reasonable assumption (since those 55% do believe there should be a request) it’s not a fact. So, at best all of those 55% are also in that 72%, and at worst only 27% are (the other 28% being those who wouldn’t support parental consent laws).
So let’s look at what they’re saying. 72% want parental consent laws - they want parents to hold power over the decision. However, 55% want the parents to mandatorily accept the minor’s request - so parents can advise, but they do not hold a veto over it. So when those 72% say “Yes, i’d like parent consent laws” at least some of them (somewhere between 55% and 27% of the total population, however many that is) are saying “Yes, i’d like parent consent laws, but the parents must abide by the child’s decision”.
So saying 72% of people want parents to hold veto power over their child’s pregnancy isn’t accurate; it’s somewhere between 17% (72 - 55) and 45% (72 - 27). Either way, a a sizeable difference; less than half the population can be said to want parents to have power over any abortion, instead of nearly three quarters.
Well, let’s just say I’m sympathetic enough to those girls who have been raped and abused to say “oh, fuck it,” the the “rights” of well-meaning parents who want to control their daughters’ lives.
Your strawman needs a little hat. Let me see if I have one in the closet.
The parents have responsibility for any non-emancipated minor - for their health care, for their welfare. Should something go wrong with the abortion procedure (as sometimes happens), the parents need to know. Imagine getting a phone call from the hospital saying “Mr and Mrs Smith, please come to the hospital right away, your daughter is in critical condition following a difficulty with a procedure.” Pause. “Procedure?! What the hell??!!” And then you see, the parents are responsible - for the medical bills, the post-care, all that stuff. How can they have no say?
I think in such a worst-case scenario - law or no law - everybody loses. But the law at least allows the parents to have been legally and knowingly involved in the process. Show me a minor who is legally and financially responsible for herself (ie, emancipated), and you can remove others from the picture. This is not an impossible option, either. Kids get emancipated every day. It’s a process, but it’s available.
Chotii, would you support parental consent forms of this kind for carrying a pregnancy to term? That is, needing consent for a child to not have an abortion?
How can they have all the say? If your father hadn’t offered the “or get out” option, are you saying that he would have been perfectly within his rights to force you to have an abortion?
Sure, kids can get emancipated, but it’s likely to take a whole lot longer than the window they’ve got to safely abort.
Pregnancy is more dangerous.
Because they can put them off; those procedures don’t come with a time limit. If the parents withold permission, the kid can do it at 18. The same is impossible with abortion.
Yes. In my opinion, a parent who forces his child to have an abortion or to not have an abortion is an unfit parent and a slaver. They should have all rights to their children revoked, and imprisoned for many years or executed.
You know what? I might. But if I did, I would take it further.
If the parents wish to forbid an abortion (or to refuse to give their consent), I would make them legally and financially responsible for the welfare of the child AS THEY ARE FOR THE MOTHER OF THE CHILD, without giving them actual parental rights over the child (which are reserved for the mother of the child unless proven unfit) until
[list=a]
[li]The mother of the child is capable of supporting the child financially as determined by realistic measures, or[/li][li]The mother of the child marries, and she and her spouse assume said responsibility, or[/li][li]The mother of the child terminates her legal parental rights to the child by releasing said child to her parents, to another person, or to an agency.[/li][/list]
Thus, parents who refuse to allow their child to abort by refusing their consent, are not permitted to thereafter to shrug off the consequences of that refusal., legal or financial.
Would this lead to more parents forcing their daughters to abort? I don’t know. Will this law as it stands lead to more parents forcing their daughters NOT to abort? Folks in this thread seem to think so.
No, the poll numbers are broken down three ways:
All parents
Pro-life parents only (those who think all abortion should be illegal)
Pro-choice parents only (those who think abortion should be legal)
Two questions are asked: Do you support parental notification (but not approval) and do you support parental approval. It’s broken down thusly for the 3 groups:
78/72
95/93
64/55
And there’s no such thing as “back-notification”. It’s saying that they back (ie, support) notification laws. So, even among parents who self-identify as pro-choice, a majority (55%) think parental approval for an abortion should be required. Among pro-life parents, that numbers 93%.
Not necessarily. The child can be put up for adoption, often before it’s even born. Some states, like the state I live in, allow anyone (minor or adult) to leave an unwanted baby at certain location, no questions asked. I’m not sure exactly what the locations are, but IIRC, they are hospitals, police and fire stations. That law was recently amended to give the parent 30 days after birth to “adandon” the baby.
Needs repeating.
Maybe it’s just me but these laws seem to be becoming more and more common. Any cases of the minor suing for “wrongful pregnancy” or the like in cases where the parents prevent her from seeking an abortion? Could child support possibly be recovered?
People often make that claim, but reality says otherwise. As stated by Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Willke,
Pro-abortion people commonly say that it is. “Maternal mortality” is listed as deaths of women per 100,000 pregnancies. This figure has been commonly listed as eleven, compared to deaths from induced abortion, which are listed as one or two. Therefore, they say abortion is seven times safer. Not so! Maternal mortality, in recent years, has dropped to seven, not eleven.
But more important is the fact that, included in maternal mortality, are all deaths from induced abortions and ectopic pregnancies. Included also in maternal mortality are all women who die while pregnant from almost any cause that is in any way related to pregnancy. Different states require longer or shorter lengths of post-partum time, but, typically, maternal mortality also includes any related death within one year after delivery.
Maternal mortality also includes deaths from caesarean section. To compare comparable risks, one would have to compare the risk of being pregnant in the first three months with the risk of having an abortion within the first three months. When compared in this fashion, abortion is many times more dangerous. Actually, it is probable that induced abortion is more dangerous than carrying a baby to term. Maternal Mortality Surveillance ’79-’86, Center for Disease Control, M&M Weekly report July ’91, Vol. 40, No. SS-1
Yes. From the father.
I have mixed feelings about these types of laws. Parents are responsible for the health and safety of their children, so withholding vital information from them just seems wrong. OTOH, pregnancy is a big deal, and a certain amount of personal decision needs to be considered. Generally I feel better about these laws if they target girls under the age of 16.