Hopefully, she’s mature enough to get all of that done within the allotted time. I know that, when I was a teenager, I was mature enough hire lawyers, file legal appeals, refile, and so on and so forth, with like a day or two to spare before Florida says, nope. And, if any of those steps are delayed by a couple of days (weekend, holiday, judge sick day), sorry! You’re having a kid!
I would have thought her guardian, the one who will be responsible to getting her to wellness appointments, etc., would have made sure she had a lawyer. Not much of a guardian, I guess.
Weird that she’s mature enough to decline legal help and be pregnant (with all the healthcare and risks that go with that) but not mature enough to decide to get a simple medical procedure. I don’t know what that judge was thinking.
Yeah, that doesn’t really make sense if she’s going to the courts to bypass her guardian. The same statute is invoked if your guardian rapes you and you want the abortion. The guardian would be adversarial which is why they aren’t in the court at all, since this is a nonadversarial proceeding. Hence why Florida provides the lawyer for free.
I’m getting conflicting info here – one person called the guardian is fine with her getting an abortion. And yet, she’s in court to bypass her guardian. So, either there are two guardians who conflict with each other or only one and that one doesn’t want her to get an abortion.
If the judge accepted her claim that the guardian was fine with the abortion, shouldn’t the just have just ruled in her favor? Why send her through this runaround?
Or, was the teen confused as to who her legal guardian was?
ETA: I just read that the judge was voted out after that decision. <Nelson>Haha!<\Nelson>
ETA2: I will be away for a few hours, so maybe someone else can pick this up, if there’s anything left to discuss.
No, per statute she needs written consent from the guardian or she needs to prove her maturity before the court.
The girl is the one who filed the petition, possibly due to a misunderstanding from her case worker / advocate or possibly just due to her own misunderstanding.
Doubtful, but possible.
To my knowledge this is false. Judge Makar’s term ends in 2027, and he wrote the partial concurrance/dissent that I cited. The other two appeals court judges, Judges Nordby and Jay, were elected to serve until 2027 and 2025, respectively. According to the Florida Bar Judge Frydrychowicz was reelected with no competition earlier this year.
Surely you see how silly this is, right? Having an abortion requires much less maturity and continued responsibility than being pregnant, having a child, and deciding whether to keep or give up the child.
ETA: Sorry for mixing up the two cases. Who would have thought two different teens would be denied the option of making their own decisions?
Reading that decision… the father “does not believe in abortion except in cases of rape”. So that had nothing to do with grades.
Dad also won’t let her drive - refuses to pay for insurance or to let her pay for insurance. So I don’t see how you can hold her lack of driving experience as a sign of immaturity.
It says she worked two jobs.
In fact it appears that her then current grades were Bs though her GPA was 2.0, which isn’t a contradiction. That just means she was doing better in school.
Oh, I see the decision was overturned on appeal. Good.