Abortion: Rights, Permission, and Family (among other things)

The right wing is all up in a tizzy in the Pacific Northwest after a fifteen year-old girl had an abortion. Naturally, the story isn't so simple as that, so let's walk through it in a certain order.

Pastor Ken Hutcherson, one of Seattle's foremost hatemongers and religious political activists, appealed to his congregation to stand up and oppose ... well, let us allow him to speak for himself:

Antioch!

Are we going to stand by and allow this to continue? Washington is one of 15 states that has no parental consent or notification laws. Call your legislators today and tell them you expect this to be changed. Call Ballard High School (206.252.1000) and the Seattle School Board (206.252.0040) and express your displeasure with the abhorrent actions taken against one of the children they are mandated to protect.

The duplicity in our government run schools boggles the mind! Our state leaders are worried about the kids' eating habits and are considering banning fat and sugar in schools but they have no qualms about allowing a child to undergo a violent and tragic medical procedure that can cripple her emotionally for life!

(qtd. in Sanders)​

And FOX News, of course, is on the case:

Seattle’s famously lousy wet weather is extra depressing today. My job is to interview parents outside Ballard High School and get their reaction to the news that their daughters can get help from the school to have an abortion without them ever knowing it.

The story broke this week about a 15-year old pregnant girl who went to her school’s teen clinic. Workers called a taxi which picked the girl up at the school and drove her by herself to a clinic where she had an abortion. The taxi then brought her back to school where she continued her day. The girl’s mother only learned of the abortion months later. She admits to signing a consent form for off-campus medical treatment but says she thought that meant in case of emergencies.

The form says kids can get reproductive health services through the school clinic, but abortion is not mentioned. The form also points out other services available to minors without parental notification: drug counseling and mental health treatment.

(Springer)​

And then there is a broader overview of the story:

When she signed a consent form, Jill figured it meant her 15 year old could go to the Ballard Teen Health Center located inside the high school for an earache, a sports physical, even birth control, but not for help terminating a pregnancy.

"She took a pregnancy test at school at the teen health center," she said. "Nowhere in this paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion."

Jill says her daughter, a pro-life advocate, was given a pass, put in a taxi and sent off to have an abortion during school hours all without her family knowing ....

.... Jill says she not only didn't have a say in her daughter's abortion, but also didn't know about it.

"Makes me feel like my rights were completely stripped away."

(KOMO)​

So let me get this straight:

• You sign a parental consent form to allow your daughter access to the school's privately-administered health center.
• Your pro-life daughter thinks she gets knocked up.
• So she goes to school, takes a pregnancy test, finds out she's pregnant, and decides to have an abortion.
• Clinic officials facilitate the procedure in accordance with state law and their contract with the schools.
• The school has "completely stripped away" your rights.​

That almost makes sense to me: Jill is angry because her daughter not only failed her expectations, but concealed the pregnancy and abortion.

It sounds to me like what needs repair is not the laws, or the policies of school or clinic. Rather, it sounds like this family needs some serious help.

"Nowhere," laments the mother, "in this paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion."

Dan Springer explains for FOX, "The form says kids can get reproductive health services through the school clinic, but abortion is not mentioned."

Okay, just a remedial note for those who need it: Abortion is a reproductive health service.

You can play semantics with that if you want, but you'll only be following Jill in fooling yourself.
____________________

Notes:

Sanders, Eli. "Notes from the Prayer Warrior". Slog. March 24, 2010. Slog.TheStranger.com. March 29, 2010. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/03/24/notes-from-the-prayer-warrior

Springer, Dan. "Seattle School Helps Give Out Secret Abortions". On the Scene. March 25, 2010. OnTheScene.Blogs.FOXNews.com. March 29, 2010. http://onthescene.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/25/seattle-school-helps-give-out-secret-abortions/

KOMO Staff. "Mother furious after in-school clinic sets up teen's abortion". KOMO News. March 23, 2010. KOMONews.com. March 29, 2010. http://www.komonews.com/news/local/88971742.html

 

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And there you have it: the single best argument against parental-notification laws.

The fact that the parents make a teenaged girl out to be a political advocate on the abortion issue, that is.

 

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I agree with what the school did. It's the most pragmatic thing and the most helpful to that girl. Would they rather the girl shut up about it for fear her mother would throw a fit, have the kid in a toilet somewhere and hemorrhage to death? I'm with them and they have my respect 100%.

She has no business complaining about her rights. She shouldn't get a say in the abortion, it's the girl's body.

 

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If you're old enough to get pregnant, you are old enough to choose to abort it.

 

What is the specific law you are asking about. I don't see it defined in your "opening statement"

 

I think being sent in a taxi would have bothered me if I were her parent. I would have preferred someone from the school had taken her. But other than that everything else the school did was in accordance with law and consent forms signed by her mother. I can understand why she would be upset, but she is really more angry/disappointed with her daughter than with the school.

 

I think that mom is being an bitch. her rights have been violated/ what right is that to ensure you daughter is a baby factory.

 

Tiassa, i like the way things are done in South Australia (and i belive the other states are quite similar).

Age of medical consent is automatically 16
If you are under 16 and can convince the medical proffessionals that:
a) you understand the choices you are offered
and
b) you are capable of acting in your own best interests (you dont HAVE to do it, you just have to prove your capable of it)

Then you have the right to make your own medical decisions and along with that comes medical privacy. SHine use this alot because how many girls who are having sex under the age of 16 are going to feel comfertable going to there parents and asking them to let the doctor perscribe the pill? Not a hell of a lot i would guess wether the parents would be willing to do it or not. However asking for the pill pritty much shows that your capable of acting in your own best interests and its not that hard to go through the various choices and there risks\benifits and comfertably determine that a 15 year old can understand that and there for has the rights of consent and medical privacy

 

No Shit.

 

Yeah. I'm cornfused.

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This and that

Washington is one of several states in the U.S. that do not require parental notification before a minor undertakes an abortion.

The Ballard High School THC did not inform the girl's mother before facilitating the abortion.

The mother signed a permission slip allowing the girl to receive treatment at the BHS/THC, including reproductive services.

The mother laments that she feels "like [her] rights were completely stripped away."

Any of these issues pertain to law. You're welcome to take your pick.

• • •​

Of course you do.

Okay, more seriously, the problem here isn't that any system failed. Rather, the system worked exactly the way it was supposed to, and a mother is taking out her frustrations on everyone else.

The SA standard sounds fine to me. But in the U.S., that wouldn't matter insofar as we still have people who, apparently, have no clue what's going on. Obviously, this mother didn't know what her daughter was up to. Quite obviously, the daughter didn't feel like letting the mother in on what was going on. And the mother signed the permission slip to for facility access. These are the issues the mother is upset at, and in lieu of actually dealing with those issues, she's looking for someone to be angry at. I'm not sure there's much of a mystery why the daughter didn't come to her mother for guidance and help. To the other, that has nothing to do with the law.

 

thats a little harsh my friend. if the US had come up with this (and it sounds from your last post as if this law in washington is something similar) then i would agree with that. Im quite willing to critise Australian law when its stupid (for instance the FGM law which managed to outlaw adult females from getting genital piercings and the NT law which has managed to criminalise any teenager who buys condoms). Of all the reasons to give medical power to "children" 2 in my opinion are of major significance. The first is sexual health and the fact that giving privacy to teens (who are going to have sex anyway) encorages safe sex and treatment which improves sexual health as much (if not more) free access to health services does. The second is palitive care, parents quite often want to hold on to there children long after there is any sensible chance of medical intervention doing more than causing pain. This is quite understandable (happens with spouses as well) but it doesnt take into acount quality of life issues which tend to be VERY important to people who are dying no matter what there age is. Alowing parents authority in all cases to make these sorts of decisions on when medical intervention was futile and ignoring the PATIENTS wishes just makes the dying proccess even worse.

So basically i am in favor of ANY laws which give autonomy to "children" to make the medical decisions that they can. Now im sure orleander will jump in here to argue for "parental rights" like she did last time but they dont exist. A person is not a table and parents should have no more rights than enduring power of guardianship gives, the main rule of which is that it ends AS SOON AS THE PERSON SHOWS COMPITANCY (actually the reverse is true, ie compitancy is assumed until proven otherwise but this way around works better for children)

 

I notice someone missing in all this talk. The father of the child.

What does he think?

 

He's stoked over his new skateboard!

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What makes you think he even knows? If you get pregnant and before you even tell anyone high tail it to the abortion clinic you don't need to know what some spotty faced teenager thinks, you already know what you want to do.

 

(Insert Title Here)

Probably. Which part?

 

Is paternity so irrelevant? Perhaps its a cultural thing, or maybe a movie thing, but it seems really strange that in all this hullabaloo, no one is even remotely interested in what the sperm donor thinks.

 

No I don't think its irrelevant if you have a relationship with someone and it is something you are sharing. But if it was just some saturday night fling then he isn't of concern when making the decision. Obviously she wasn't in some teenage romance or he would have been considered.

Lets turn this around? If a man wanted a woman to have an abortion and she wanted to keep the baby does he have the right to stop her, order her to have it or is it her right to have the baby herself? If she has the baby does she then have the right to say he must give child support? I know it seems off topic but there are so many people who ask 'what about he father' in terms of whether he would approve of an abortion, as if to say that she should consider having one because he wants it, but those same people would say he doesn't have a right to tell her she should have an abortion which I find hypocritical. If he has a right to say its his child and should be considered he also has the right to say 'get rid of it' and have it considered. In short I don't think that it makes a difference what the male has to say in a situation where a woman has decided to either have a baby or abort a fetus

 

I don't have all the answers, but it seems to me unfair that one would expect a man to take responsibility for a child that a woman will choose to have but give him no choice at all in the having of it.

 

But that's just the thing, most women who have a child are lucky if the man chips in at all financially. She can always hunt him down by going to court and attempting to force him to pay but really I don't believe that a man should be forced to pay for a child he doesn't want nor intended to have a child. I also don't believe that a man has the right to force pregnancy on a woman who doesn't want to give birth.

In this case I don't think he was really part of her life enough to be considered but even if he did want to have the baby I don't believe she is under any obligation to do so. I mean she really wanted an abortion, so why bother to tell him anything?

 

Some interesting stats:

Child support delinquencies have reached an epidemic level in the United States, plunging many parents (most of them women) and children into poverty and bankruptcy. Approximately 30 million children in the USA are owed more than $41 billion (that's billion with a "b") in unpaid child support, according to estimates by the Association for the Enforcement of Child Support (ACES). Another nine million or more children on welfare aren't even covered by a basic child support order.

http://financialplan.about.com/cs/familyfinances/a/ChildSupport.htm