You don’t feel parents should be involved in bringing their children up anymore?
Whose responsibility ultimately is it that these children enter life ready and able?
Read what I wrote.
If you would like to quote where I say parents should not be involved in bringing up their children, I would love to read it.
Here is what I am saying.
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Parents are ideally situated to provide support in most situations, for the vast majority of girls it would be advisable for their parents to be brought into the loop.
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Most situations and vast majority is not the same all situations and all girls.
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It would be a good idea, if the girl is competent to let her decide whether her parents are going to help or hinder her in this situation, as she is the one involved, and she knows them (and her) best.
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Mandatory parental notification in this minority of cases would cause more family problems and more abuse than it would solve.
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We’re talking about mandatory notification, without investigation if that would be in her best interest. I say that since it isn’t always, and she is the one involved, she gets to decide.
Strawman.
Besides, by the time pregnancy is going to be an issue, you don’t have children anymore, you’ve got teenagers. And while teenagers can generally be just as stupid as when they were younger, they tend to by this point have their own ideas and beliefs, or are developing them independently of their parents. While it’s ok to want to protect a child from their own behaviour (“I want three bowls of ice cream!!!”) by the time they’re older you have to give them some leeway to make decisions on their own.
Ultimately, it is the child’s responsibility. Agreed, in the earlier ages, children are incapable of making rational decisions, and thus it’s fair that parents make those decisions for them. But by the time of fertility, a child should be expected to be able to make their own decisions; a 16 year old may marry, for example. There comes a point where the onus of responsibility for their life passes from the parents onto the child themselves. With appropriate guidance from their parents, social workers, doctors, etc if they wish to accept it.
My mother always told me that if I got pregnant I should come to her and she would help me get an abortion if that’s what I decided to do. She explained that she would rather know that I was getting the best care possible in that situation and that she wanted me to not have to worry about the cost or be afraid to tell her. If I had gotten pregnant as a teenager I would have gone to her without hesitation.
It seems to me that if a parent wants to be informed about this kind of situation then they need to communicate this with their daughter long before the fact and build trust so that their daughter would inform them. IMHO, if you don’t have that kind of relationship with yoiur daughter, it’s your own fault that you never find out. I strongly disagree with the government getting involved in this situation AT ALL.
You did not make yourself clear. The topic being discussed was teen girls getting abortions without parental notification. I interpreted this as “my daughter deciding to get an abortion is not the best decision.” It’s not mind-reading, it’s just reading. Your clarification changes my interpretation of your statement. But my original comment still stands. It’s not directed at you personally.
Here in California we voted, and defeated, just such a ballot measure (as previously pointed out). After (I hope) careful consideration, I chose to oppose this measure, for the reasons so articulately stated above by others.
However, it gets me that someone under 18 who is pregnant would be considered a rape victim, since they are under the age of consent (please correct me if I’m wrong). If the majority of us, as proven by the defeat of this ballot measure, believe that women under the age of 18 can make an informed choice about their reproductive medical care, then why is the age of consent not likewise lowered? Otherwise, it seems to me that we are saying, “you are under 18, therefore you have been raped, but if you want an abortion nobody needs to be the wiser.”
On the heels of the defeat of this ballot measure, wouldn’t it make sense to bring the age of sexual majority in line with this stance?
Or you could just do what the UK does, and decide that if there is no co-ercion, abuse of power and the underage victim isn’t willing to make acomplaint herself then the courts and the police have no interest in following up allegations of statutory rape.
i.e. you can’t have your 15 y/o daughter’s boyfriend charged with statutory rape unless she is willing to press charges.
I’m not quite sure I’m in favour of an age of consent…there are some 15 year olds who are smarter, more mature and perceptive than some adults. Some adults never attain the ability for abstract thought, yet a few teens have already done so.
Perhaps some sort of competence test is required.
After all, the only thing that is needed to be considered competent legally is to understand the consequences of your actions, and to be able to weigh up risks and benefits in order to make a decision that another competent person would consider to be reasonable.
In some places. In others, the age of consent is lower, and in still others there are varying ages of consent depending upon the age difference of the partners.
And I think parental notification/permission laws are very, very bad. I see no way that any good can come of this.
I can only say that I agree completely with the OP.
Even in cases less extreme than the honor killings she mentions, I suspect a significant number of teenagers might not request an abortion early enough if told their parents are going to be informed and paradoxically end up as 16 yo mothers as a result.
I’m not sure if you’re refering to a “competence test” for the age of consent or for abortion.
In the former case, I really can’t see what kind of test could be implemented.
In the latter, if the teenager isn’t competent to make a reasonnable decision for herself , then she’s even less competent to raise a child, hence she should be allowed…no…advised…to abort.
I completely agree with you on this. It’s just that there is a bit of a double standard, in the sense that a woman (below the age of 18) who can dictate her reproductive medical care isn’t given the same autonomy about her sexual consent - this would apply to a minor male as well, but luckily they don’t face the same pregnancy complications that a woman does. And I can see how other parents would be concerned that a medical procedure was done on their minor daughter without their involvement or knowledge. This is a circumstance, it seems, where laws and rules don’t go very far towards solving the problems that arise with sexually mature minors - it’s not the right tool to apply to this situation.
They are pretty easy to get where I live ( a large southern US city) and I do know of young women who claim to have had several abortions. Now whether they are using a contraceptive or not I don’t know. We have at least 3 clinics that do abotions here.
My father threatened to kick me out because I couldn’t keep my room tidy. When I was 16 years old, I was fondled by the father of a woman I took dance lessons from. My father didn’t do anything about it because he didn’t want to risk damaging his standing in the community. ROU Dirty Only if Done Right, calling Child Protective Services is something which, even today, is unthinkable. The harm my father did to me was not intentional and he really did the best he knew how to do. He did better by me than his parents did by him. If he’d been publicly accused of abusing his only daughter, he would have been devastated. As it was, he didn’t think much of himself; the news would only have confirmed some of his worst fears. He’s not evil, and then and now, I love him dearly.
My own experiences, however, are one reason I cannot support mandatory parental identification laws. If the law provides an alternative such as getting the court’s permission instead of one’s parents, logistical concerns enter in. For example, how does a pregnant teenager get the court’s permission without her parents finding out? Time is also a factor. If a teenager doesn’t want her parents to know she’s pregnant, it would be advisable for her to have an abortion before she starts to show. Also, while first trimester abortions may be acceptable to many, the further along in a pregnancy a woman is, the less acceptable abortion becomes.
At 16, I was already a pretty troubled teenager with undiagnosed clinical depression and a history of suicide attempts. If I had become pregnant and was unable to obtain an abortion without parental permission, it could easily have pushed me over the edge and led to another suicide attempt, this time a successful one. My father’s actions had already told me he valued his reputation over his daughter; a pregnant, unmarried daughter in a small town would have been even more scandalous. In most cases and in an ideal world, I agree that teenagers should be able to discuss these things with their parents. Indeed, when a young woman I used to know became pregnant when she was a teenager, she did tell her family and the result was she wound up keeping the baby, naming her, of all things, “Chastity”. 
To those of you raising your children in such a way that they can come to you about such things, I can’t tell you enough how much I appreciate what you’re doing because I know what it’s like not to have that kind of relationship. I just want the kids like me protected.
By the way, this website has some information about how available abortion is within the United States and how that’s changed over the past several years. This table from that website has what percentage of counties within each state don’t have abortion providers as of 2000. While there may be 3 clinics which provide abortion in the city where adhemar lives, in 2000 there were only 3 doctors in the entire states of Kentucky and West Virginia who provide them. North and South Dakota each have only two doctors who provide abortions; this is an improvement from 1996 when they each only had one. As with many health services in the US, what services are available to you depend on where you live.
Respectfully,
CJ