"Choice"

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Forcing abortion is wrong and the girl does deserve to have her say, but I doubt she's really thinking about her future and the repercussions her decision will have on her life. I think the parents do have a right to decide for her, but it really depends on how mature and responsible she is. If she's *really* mature and responsible and decides she wants to stay pregnant then good for her, her parents should respect her decision. However if the parents respect her decision and she's not that mature or responsible, then she's just stupid and will have to live with her choice. Either way that girl was pretty dumb.

 

Aik,
the decisioin is a rough one. Perhaps the parents would have probably been better advised to let her have that child. There is no easy way out in this case.

What will come out if she's allowed to have that child? Imagine a mother of 18 on welfare, with a 5 year old child, 7th grade education, a ****ed up rep (literally) and no choice but to marry because she won't possibly find a job. Probably, whe'll also have a hard time to find a husband, if I get the Italian menthality right she'd rather be seen as an easy gal and be dealt with accordingly. Awesome. And that is very likely how the parents will see it - as abortion being in their kid's best rational self-interest.

The key issue here is the relationship between parents and child and how much rights the kids has and how many the parents. The decision made was in accordance with the current consensus on the relations between child rights and parental rights.

And you are mistaken about forcing someone to do something or denying it to him. It's no difference. It's the same thing: Exercising power over a subject.

 

GOD how DARE we have opposing opinions!

I think it's pretty awful that she was forced to have an abortion, but considering the long-term consequences of having a child at her age, it was really one of the best options they had, unfortunately.

 

Monty,
I note that you apparently disapprove the judge's decision.

The actions covered in Nuremberg are not equivalent with the issue here. Take a deep breath.

 

Wow, this is a tough one. While I remain strongly pro-choice in regards to abortion, I feel forcing someone to have one is kind of harsh. Yet, I totally agree that no 13 year old is ready to be a mother and raise a family. Little Snook is going to be 11 soon, so I have exposure to kids this age. The body of a 13 year old girl today is nothing like the body of a 13 year old when I grew up. Now many of them can pass for close to 18. I've been to Bar/Bat Mitzvahs where me and my wife were convinced a 13 year old was 21 and could get drinks at the bar. However, the fact that they look more mature evaporates pretty quickly when they open their mouths and you realize that they are still children.

 

What I am trying to say in my posts is that forcing someone to have an abortion is in no way the same as forcing someone to eat their broccoli or for that matter go to school.

Abortion is an invasive medical procedure even when done in the first trimester. There are also the mental and emotional scars to be considered.

The girl's immaturity does not IMO justify forcing her to have what (again IMO) is a form of rape. I do not know how to put this more bluntly and still be reasonably polite.

 

Newborn infants who are otherwise free of defects never have difficulty getting adopted. This question is completely irrelevant.

Agreed. It's one (rather distasteful) thing for parents who don't want to raise their daughter's child for her to refuse to allow her to keep it, but forcing an abortion is an entirely different matter.

 

Well, that certainly would be taking the moral high ground, but it is not a very practical choice. I, too, can quit my job today if I so desired. However, last I heard, judges make a pretty good salary, and chances are this guy is supporting his family on his pretty good salary. So the choice really comes down to quitting, and having less money to support his family after taking what will most likely be a lower paying job than being a judge, or doing what he is being paid to do - i.e., enforcing the law - and continue his nice lifestyle.

When you add into the equation that he would simply be replaced and the new judge would likely make the exact same ruling he did, so that his sacrifice would be only symbolic in nature, I think it's a pretty easy choice. It's one thing to fall on your sword out of principle when something good comes of it. It's an entirely different matter to do so for nothing.

 

Blaming the judge for not stepping down for what Monty understands as immoral is taking the moral highground. From there on it's easy: You are right, the others are wrong. End of story.

 

A child cannot be entrusted to take care of a child in any meaningful form. What are the physical risks to a still-developing body of carrying a pregnancy to term? And the very thought of abortion forced on a 13-year old makes me cringe to say the least. But there is also the matter of emotional harm inflicted on a far too young mother by parting with the child (adoption).

Nah. An impossible situation. Though in the end I would support the parents' decision, I think, if not lightly.

 

That's a lovely doom and gloom scenario there - how about this one?
She has the child and loves him/her a very great deal. With support from family and friends she continues her education while looking after the child herself as much as possible. Perhaps learning by correspondence could be useful here.
The boyfriend gets a job and the parents pitch in money to cover the rest. She also gets whatever youth allowances she can. Later she goes on to work or to uni, and deals with it in the way that the majority of working mothers do.

I could continue this nice little story - but it's just that - a story. There's no reason that it has to be as gloomy as you say - and it quite possibly wouldn't be as happy as I say - but both are as plausible and as useless to this case as the other. There is no guarantee that things would turn out horribly.

Yes - they're both exercising power over a subject. No, they are not the same thing. 'I won't let you do that' is different from 'You will do this'. E.G. 'I will not let you have sex with that man' vs 'I will force you to have sex with that man'. Veeeeery different things, but both are still exercising power over someone.

You're either not keeping what I said in mind, or you're ridiculously tolerant.
When I see you being totally fine with the opinion that rape is acceptable, then I'll believe the second one.

If you think that 'what the hell is wrong with you?' is a valid question to ask a supporter of rape (which I'll assume you do...), then why is it not a valid question for me - with my opinion on this - to ask you now?

 

Aik,
you should have read the last line of the paragraph you quoted:

I was trying to line out the likely parents point of view. For that it doesn't matter what you or I think about it, especially if we like it or think it right.

On an abstract level they're the two sides of the same coin. That is an important point. By pointing that out I wanted to hint toward parental exercise of power, namely the power of self-determination - not over the child but for the child, through the parents. They are governors of the kids rights until adulthood.

In this case, I don't know if that is clear to you, legally the kid, despite it's dissent, agrees to the abortion -- through its parents. That idea is hard to swallow. The kid's dissent is huff and puff legally because it is 13. In face of the open dissent between the parents and the kid the doctors likely refused the action. The judge has made clear that for a thirteen year old it's still the parents who exercise the child's rights of self-determination, and that for that measure only their voice is relevant. The judge also must have considered wether the kid was mature enough, so it could, exceptionally, overrule her parents. Evidently he was unconvinced. That's what the decision is about. So legally it in the essence as if the kid has itself agreed to the abortion. The decision was made for her through her governors because she was unable to do it herself. That's tough stuff especially in respect to the rights in question.

The only thing that differs is the perspective of the subject, or in your view, victim. You allege that forcing someone has a different quality than denying something to someone. Yes? Is denying a starving man food less bad than taking it away from him? That is my point. In our case it is even subtly different: It's about forcing the kid to tolerate an abortion, a third variant. Because this is all interesting and subtle but leads nowhere, it's IMO sensible to settle on the exercise of power.

[ February 28, 2007, 09:19: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

I'm not totally fine with it. I think it was a pretty nasty and inhumane thing to do. But the fact that I have an extremely cynical view of what would have happened if she had been allowed to keep the child means I believe that this was one of (although not the best) courses of action they could have took. And, while your happy vision of sunshine and rainbows is fully possible, I doubt that:

a) The 13-year-old will have any Goddamn clue about how to look after her child, regardless of how much she wanted to keep it

b) The girl will be able to give birth to and feed the child without problems, since she's 13 years old

c) The father will stick around; I doubt a 15-year-old boy would be up to the responsibility of raising a kid, especially since he seems reckless/ idiotic enough to have sex with a girl 2 years younger than him without protection

d) She won't become a social pariah.

[ February 28, 2007, 10:40: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

 

Clixby,
your view is likely realistic.

 

Clixby, let me counter your own post with my own. Your talking about forcing a 13-year old girl to have an abortion, so let's see what that really means.

1.)It is by no means unheard of for otherwise mentally healthy mature women who choose an abortion to attempt suicide as a result.

2.)At 13 years old, mental stability and health is by no means guaranteed. I'd guess depression and social isolation are serious risks. Depending on the family and the child, the fact that she had sex at all may be an indication of such things.

3.)At 13 years old, the girl is thinking primarily with her thalimus, not her pre-frontal cortex, which means she is thinking emotionally, not logically.

4.)An invasive procedure intended to kill her child (regardless of arguements, I'll bet money she sees it as killing her child) is being forced on her.

Those alone mean that she will be taking a blow to her mental stability that I would guess is even heavier than being raped! Add to that the risks of an abortion, such as premanent scarring and the possibility that she may never be able to have children again because of it, and I'd say that no parent willing to force this onto their child is fit to be a parent! If I were the judge, I'd remove the parents as legal guardians and place someone else in charge. Hopefully, that someone else would choose adoption, as it really is the best solution, and probably the only acceptable one.

At the bare minimum, the parents are probably looking at spending as much money for their girl's counseling as they would to raise the child until it was out of mandatory schooling.

 

You obviously have no idea how much it costs to raise a child. I agree that forcing an abortion was going way too far (mostly) for the reasons you mentioned, but I think requiring her to give the child up (at least until old enough to override her parents' decision) is legally justifiable although I find the idea of doing so utterly distasteful and even cruel.

 

honestly i cant see any good reasons for forcing an abortion, when adoption is such an easy option and it really is.

As far as i can see, the parrents are more likely doing it to save the "child" from the disgrace of being a young mother.