why wouldn't a high school kid just buy their own aspirin?

In my high school, it was detention if you got caught with any medication, OTC or not. Teachers usually looked the other way to a certain point, but technically it's a zero tolerance rule.

Cindy, I don't think parental notification would be an issue between you and your daughter. In any event, you're not the reason teenage girls might need to get an abortion without talking to their parents.

I might be inclined to agree, except I have women dear to me, who were pregnant and aborted while minors, who didn't tell their parents, simply because they were ashamed and afraid they'd disappoint them. They weren't the children of abusive or otherwise unreasonable people, either. No loving parent is going to say, "Woo hoo, you're underage and pregnant with a child you didn't plan, can't provide for, and don't want. I'm so proud of you." An unintended pregnancy is a miserable situation. Now parenting is a journey, and ideally, it's made clear over the years, that you love your kids, and want to help them, even/especially when they need help because they've screwed up. But sometimes, kids are just too ashamed to think clearly about it all, and too proud to admit they're still kids and need the help of their parents.

At the time my friends aborted (actually, I think the minors had to go to NH at the time), I thought it was wonderful that they could do this without their parents knowledge. But I know the parents involved. Not one of them would have ultimately forced their child into one choice or another. Every single one of them would have given their daughters support they needed and never got after the fact, and at least in one case, the parents might have given her the support to not choose the choice she has regretted. The girls wouldn't have had to sit around crampy and crying an unable to be open about what they were going through.

The government does not have the right to take away the rights and reponsibilities of law-abiding parents to parent their children. It damages the children of law-abiding parents, when it does so--puts them at risk--because it removes from them the real love and support they need, and replaces it with moments with a clinic worker, instead. God, or nature, either way, something much bigger than any state or federal goverment, put these kids in my care. My rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ought to extend to not having my government help my children go behind my back, right when they need me most.

Would the parents have tried to influence their daughters in one way or another? Some. Would they have then restricted their social lives? Probably, at least some of them would have. It is arguable that these girls needed more limits, more guidance on contraception, and/or closer supervision than they were getting, in the first place. But they weren't not getting it because of any real pathology in their families. They weren't getting it because parents are often clueless, and kids are great at being secretive. Would the kids have liked the more alert parenting that may have resulted? Probably not. Their parents would have also seen to it that they got better medical care, and didn't have to rely on their buddies skipping school to drive them out of state, to a clinic, with no easy way to follow up, after.

Would the parents have loved them, and been able to counsel them? Yes. Would they have given them the emotional support they needed, where all we could think to do was get them drunk, and let them cry, laugh, puke and probably not mention it much ever again? Yep.

Seems to me that if we need to write a law, rather than just let people use their own best judgment, then writing a law that says "tell the parents" protects a lot fewer people than writing a law that says "don't tell the parents."

In totally other news, and mememe, I've been playing with Google Earth (their Keyhole application), and I can see my house from here. But I can't see the house I grew up in, because their satellite imagery of Roswell sucks. Which proves, I guess, that Google is not run by the little green men from outer space.

Also, if society feels my 17 year old doesn't have the maturity/responsibility to drink, vote, gamble, view pornography, or enter into binding legal agreements, why would she automatically have the maturity/responsibility to make as important a decision as getting an abortion done?

But if a 17 year old gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby, there's not a thing her parents or anyone else can do to stop it, regardless of the maturity level, legal aspects, etc.

In my high school, it was detention if you got caught with any medication, OTC or not.

Seriously? Huh.

I'm not sure a "right to parent" is at issue here-- it seems to be a "right to stop your child's abortion."

Right to weigh in, right to guide, right to encourage, right to support, right to discuss, right to parent. Right to stop? I wouldn't support that.

Pardon my ignorance, but does parental notification also mean parental consent?

My rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ought to extend to not having my government help my children go behind my back, right when they need it most.

I think I see what you're saying here, at least as well as a non-parent can. But I have to wonder if the children's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness aren't also an issue here. If the kid can't or won't go to the parent(s) to discuss birth control before getting pregnant, I don't see where discussing an abortion would be any easier. And the non-legal ways for a teenager (or any woman, really) getting an abortion seem more harmful to me than getting the abortion without parental support.

hate the stereotype of Planned Parenthood as some kind of drive-through abortion Wal-Mart. They offer counseling, they offer adoption services, they offer prenatal care.

I wasn't phrasing myself well, Jessica -- I do know all that. What I meant was that in situations of rape and incest, the pregnancy is only a tiny part of the problem. No matter what choice a girl makes, she needs more help than either an abortion or "Jesus will care for you and your baby." And I hope that the people she goes to for help would recognize that. It's less about what Planned Parenthood offers and more a sort of meta-recognition that there isn't a wonder drug in that situation.

If that makes sense.

Pardon my ignorance, but does parental notification also mean parental consent?

I believe often, but not always.

Seriously? Huh.

Yeah, wacky to me, too. Although now I'm entertained by the mental image of a teacher trying to confiscate my Midol.