Underaged abortion advised and made without parents knowing

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Good point, Chandos, but it's not really sure to what extent the mother is responsible here. There's no mention of the father (or have I missed it?), so she might be a single mother and those already have too many things to take care of for one person. Also, who would suppose a 14 year old girl to have sex? Plus, with kids it works like with unfaithful spouses: if they want to screw, they will and you can do nothing about that except for being a good example and that not always works (plus, it takes more time to enact fully than a single working parent has to spare).

However, the mother allegedly having failed in an equivocal situation, she was nonetheless not even given chance to prove herself in the most important ordeal and the only unequivocal trial. Whether she had done enough to learn the truth is immaterial in the face of deliberate deception and downright lie on the part of the school. The school can't use any ethical or moral arguments because they would have to have clean hands themselves, first of all.

Ultimately, had the woman really screwed up, it was not the school's place usurp parental authority - let alone to decide they're above the law and human rights.

Also, from the perspective of the kid having unprotected sex, the school can't blame the mother if they claim for themselves the competence to inform children about the options they have, like contraception and abortion. No, it's not sudden change in my views on contraception, I'm speaking on purely logical basis here, ie the school failed to inform the kid no less than the mother did.

I still look forward to prison sentences in this case.

[ May 29, 2004, 13:51: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

@Chandos:

As Caleb said, you can't really make the claim for bad parenting here based on the information that we're given. Even a good parent could only provide an example for their child. They do not live that child's life for them. The girl has a free will, can act on her own, and the teen years are a time of experimentation and pushing the limits of parental authority. Most have us have gotten into some form of trouble or other in our teen years, but is that the fault of our parents? I don't see how the mother is supposed to know about this, as children can be incredibly deceptive when they want to be, especially when that involves escaping the potential wrath of a parent.

That's an excellent point, and the school was WAY out of line. The mother's tax dollars pay for this institution, and they turn around and lie to her about something as important as this. As a school, they should point out that abortion IS an alternative, but that's the extent of their involvement. If anything, they should have called the mother and told her the girl was pregnant.

As for prison terms... for what? Abortion isn't illegal. What would you charge them with? I'll agree that the school overstepped their bounds, and they should certainly endure suspension/firings, but they acted with concern for the well being of the girl. Should this be punished with prison terms? I don't think so.

Oh God, I really dont' want to get into this. Long story short: since when does the mother have the right to forbid an abortion for her daughter? Shouldn't it be the girl's decision? I mean, she's a child, but the last time I checked, children did have minds, and were even capable of making decisions on their own. I've even seen it once or twice. Seriously, I'm all for guiding children and all that, and she should be made aware of her options, but the final decision has to be hers, not the mother's, not the school's, but hers.

[ May 29, 2004, 21:50: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Sorry, but I am having problems with the formating of this thread, and so it was difficult to read the replies. But the essence seemed to be that the parent is not responsible for the acts of his/her child.

It seems that some feel that the responsibilty for parenting should rest elsewhere. And where would that be? Notice that I have not given any opinion on the school's actions at all, since the information in the article was not very convincing either way. As has been pointed out, we know nothing of the 14 year old girl's home background. And we know almost nothing about the mother. We don't even know if there is a father at home.

I do know that the student was pregnant and that the mother seemed oblivious to what was happeing in her daughter's life - maybe "too busy" to find out, seems to be the conventional wisdom here. It makes me wonder how many other things in her daughter's life to which she was oblivious. Also, being 14 and having sex, with all the risks, is more than "scewing up a little" in the opinion of most of those who would claim be responsible parents.

The one thing that stands out in my mind, is that the daughter "seemed" to turn the school with this issue first rather than approaching her own mother with it. Then after the fact, the mother was suddenly so supportive. Why, she was even so "thoughtful" as to get the girl's father "involved." I wonder where he has been for the other 14 years? Something is wrong with this picture.

[ May 29, 2004, 16:44: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Excuse me for being a little prejudiced, but I bet most of the people out there who want to forbid abortions are men.

Now from a woman's point of view the mere thought of making abortion illegal is terrifying.

I'm 17, not so far from 14, and I do think that I was as capable of making a decision about these things by then as I am now.

I would consider it wrong to try forcing the girl to do either thing, but I would, as the school, also advice her to make an abortion. Just as I would advice her to speak to her parents and her boyfriend, but I would point out that her decision, whatever it may be, should be her own.

You have to understand that it’s impossible to let the father decide whether the child should be born or not, as it’s the girl that has to bear it.

As for poor parenting, I would as a mother consider it a failure to have a daughter getting pregnant at 14. Even worse would be that she didn’t dare to tell me.

A weak attempt to justify a prohibition of abortion, in my opinion.

 

School is primarily intended for education. They (gays) do play other roles in upbringing of children, but only supportive to the parents'. They decided to violate the mother's basic rights and they should pay the price. I don't know the British law in this much detail, so I have to hope they have legal rules that make an opportunity to put the people involved in this scheme in prison where they belong, IMHO of course. Mind you, they didn't just neglect the need to contact the mother, they specifically belied her.

Since the daughter is below legal age.

From a legal standpoint: the mother's, with a possibility to override by the court.

I would like to avoid getting into a discussion of whether a woman should be allowed to kill the foetus at will in general.

I know women who disagree, but let's please concentrate on this particular case.

I suppose it works this way: now that you're 17 you think you'd have thought the same if you had been 14. When you're 20, you'll think you would think the same when you were 17 as you think being 20. However, you won't really think that you would think the same being 20 as you would think if you were 14.

Next, parental authority ends with the age of 18.

Well, the school hadn't done even that. They instead chose to lie to the mother.

If a woman decides to have sex with a man, she decides to face the possible consequences in form of conceiving a child with that man. Conception is a natural result of unprotected sex between a woman and a man and no one forced that girl to have sex with her boy. Humans don't breed via parthenogenesis, there's the egg cell and the spermatozoon. The child is so much the father's as the mother's. If fathers were to have no rights to the children, they should have no obligations as well. Having fun without having to pay for it sounds attractive, but life isn't an eternal playground and people grow up.

 

Hearsay and more hearsay. The mother claims the school lied to her about her daughter's whereabouts - did they, or is she making political hay? She claims the daughter, had she talked with her first would have kept the baby - did the daughter really say that, and if she did, was she simply telling her mother what she wanted to hear?

No laws were broken:

From the commentary I've read browsing the BBC site, the authorities that be determined this was necessary in dealing with an apparently burgeoning teen pregnancy problem. The consensus seems to be, were the parents required to be notified, the teens would end up not seeking help at all. (Mom would still be out of the loop - as evidently, she is slow to catch on.)

Finally, I strongly disagree with your opinion that grandma (as this mom would effectively be) should have the final say in whether or not the girl obtained an abortion - she's not the one who is pregnant! And apparently, the daughter felt she couldn't trust her mother - and splashing this all over the press does little to dispel this.

Except for the men of course, right? Why else would they engage in unprotected sex outside of marriage?

[ May 29, 2004, 22:56: Message edited by: Sojourner ]

 

Isn't it odd that if you take a minor across State lines without parental consent...you can go to jail...but you can take her down the street and assist her in homicide...and that's called "her freedom to chose"

"Pro-Choice" makes no sense.

 

@Hacken Slash: Well, that's where there's the basic inconsistency here. In small matters parental control is respected, in important ones it's being skipped. Some human rights become less important than the authorities' policy and so on, everything being politically correct and accorded by politically correct verdicts of politically correct judges. Logic is not relevant in the process.

Parental control is a human right and a civil right. Human and civil laws usually have constitutional rank, or at least higher than "common" bills, let alone enactments.

The consensus was that if parents were informed, they could disagree and the propagation of abortion as a routine medical operation comparable to tonsil removal wouldn't work.

If the teens would end up not "seeking help" (ie an abortion), they would end up giving birth and having their own children. Bad for the demographics? Bad for the liberal image?

That doesn't change the fact that a child comes from two parents and not just one.

 

You are a nutcase

 

Ah, so now you've become a rabid supporter of teens having babies out of wedlock, provided you don't have to pay for them, of course.

But you have no problem making that comparison with a complicated pregnancy, delivery and C-section, not to mention miscarriage should something go wrong (which frequently does).

Dodging. This single-father crap smacks to me of the male wanting to have his cake and eat it, too.

It is obvious to me that what problem you're having here, is not the fact the school did not inform the parents, but that the girl got an abortion.

[ May 30, 2004, 07:34: Message edited by: Sojourner ]

 

I think that it's the "pro-choicer's" who are dodging...over and over again chev has tried to steer the topic of this thread back to the narrowly defined realm of the legality and propriety of the school's actions...particularly when viewed against other laws that affect the rights of minors...and this central issue has been largely ignored.

 

Er, no he hasn't. As for the legality:

And finally, there's the Watch & Listen link from the one Chevalier posted: "Maureen Smith...is calling for the law to be changed"

 

You seem to be missing something...there is a difference between legally enforced disclosure, and transporting the child (yes, dammit...she is a child) to an abortion mill.

This is the central question of the thread...which, yes, is still being dodged.

 

Jumping to conclusions - NOWHERE in the article does it say that happened! And the central question was whether the school should have informed the mother.

 

Explain, please.

No need to take it so personal, really. I can live with the knowledge that you disagree with me, so I bet you could too if you tried.

I'm a rabid supporter of responsibility for your actions. First of all, pregnancy is not some inconvenient complication, it's a natural result of sexual intercourse.

The problem doesn't begin in having children out of wedlock. The problem begins in having sex out of wedlock. Wanted to have some fun? Something went wrong? So fix it instead of finding an easy way out. In my first language, we have an idiom for that that translates as "walking on corpses". Quite relevant in this case, I believe.

Sometimes you have to make a choice between the life of the mother and the life of her unborn child. Complicated pregnancy isn't an excuse.

The man wanted to have fun without paying the bill much like the man. Please note that no one in this thread had talked about single father before you did. That you have a problem with single fathers doesn't mean it's relevant for all of us in this discussion. The fathers who have no say about the mothers aborting their children are relevant here, but there's no logical connection between this and single fathers.

What is obvious for you need not necessarily be true. Especially not the way you present it.

So, instead of artfully dodging the subject and playing Freud on me, maybe, for a change, we could discuss the topic?

 

Listen lads, either way I look at it the thing makes little sense to me. Either the girl is old enough to accept consequences of her actions or she isn't. If she is old enough to have sex and face the consequences then she is old enough to decide that she wants an abortion and face the consequences. If she is too young to deicde whether she wants an abortion or not then surely she is too young to have a child of her own and raise it.

I do agree that the parents should have been told but I also think that by letting them decide you also have to get them to take full reponsibility for their grandchild. To put it another way, I agree that the girl's parents have to have a final word in any medical procedure performed on their daughter, but that they have to make their decision based on the girls wishes.

One good thing might come of all this: the girl will think twice before ignoring contraception again...

 

Well, that's what she has parents for. The mother (ie could-have-been-grandmother) wanted to keep the child and care for it, not just to force her daughter to give birth only to kick her out of the house together with the kid, anyway.

Children's wishes have some importance, but the role of parents is to make decision based on what they think is good for their children and not on the children's wishes. If parents were to make deicisions based on their children's wishes, they wouldn't be needed at all.

 

I give you:

and

from your first post.

 

I remember what I've said. Now please explain how it relates to single fathers.

 

All right, I'll spell it out - the boyfriend, if he is indeed the father, would be a single father, since he is obviously not married.