( continues...) subject to investigation and prosecution for neglect. Yet here, a doctor can render this surgery, and many abortion rights advocates would fight to allow that this be concealed from the parents who are legally responsible for the child,
even in cases where the parents are not abusive.
How are they to provide the care she needs, if the doctors can operate on her, without informing them?
Why don't we just free parents from all responsibility for their children, once they can read, subtract, add, or at most by the onset of menses? We don't, because we believe they need parenting until they are of an age where they are able to make informed decisions, and give informed consent. This age has been (somewhat arbitrarily) set at 18. You can't have a beer legally, until you're 21, but you can have an abortion without your parents knowledge at any age, in some states.
In re this country, I plan to go down fighting.
Of course, on this board, mostly I'd amend that to "if you ask nicely." Bad dum pum.
(Ok, way inappropriate lighter note.)
{{Cash}}
Abortion, however, is a surgical procedure, and there are after-effects you don't (or at least I haven't) seen with contraceptive use.
What about the morning after pill? No surgery required.
What about the morning after pill? No surgery required.
If it doesn't take, they could have to follow up with a surgical abortion. I forget what the % of failure in RU486 is.
What about the morning after pill? No surgery required.
It's important to distinguish between the morning after pill -- superconcentrated birth control pills that prevent implantation -- and chemical abortion through RU-486. I'm sure you wouldn't do this, but a lot of people seem to blur the two, when they're very different.
What about the morning after pill? No surgery required.
It pings me far less. I'm not crazy about the idea that my kids could get any medication without my knowledge, but I know it's less (overall) risky for my kid to go on b.c. pills, than to conceive, provided she takes precaution against disease, as well. Assuming the risk of the morning after pill is more or less the same as B.C. pills, I think it's a different kettle of fish.
Lyra Jane, thank you for the distinction. I was assuming she meant RU486 when I posted a response but yeah, big difference.
Cindy, I don't think you're wrong. But - you're an adult, making a rational argument. There are kids out there who will feel that
anything
is better than telling their parents. And that's not just young women whose parents are or are likely to be abusive. Like others have said, I don't have kids, so I hesitate to speak as if I know all the ins and outs. But I believe that I would want my daughter to tell me, I would hope that I had raised my daughter to feel that she could, and at the end of the day, I would want her to have access to legitimate, responsible medical providers if she felt she couldn't, whether that feeling was based in reality or not.
But you of course have those rights, and they're simply not at issue here-- this is not a law that hinders good parenting, or somehow prevents you from parenting. The positive obligation is on telling a parent whose child does not want guidance, encouragement, support, discussion-- all the way to forcing the issue with a court order.
This relates to Cashmere's experience.
Any parenting my parents needed to do, they did way before I got pregnant. It was my own mistake and my own choice. And I don't think the year between 17 and 18 meant a bit of difference in my maturity level so the law would have just made an already tough situation that much harder for me.
That covers my perspective on it.
I have to step away to make dinner but it's been an interesting discussion with good points being made.
The boys want tacos.
