Florida: 13 year old girl has abortion blocked

Discussion Open Forum
1

Hi.

I just saw this on the bbc web site

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4500245.stm

The main story is a court has ruled that at 13 year old girl is not mature enough to make the decision to have an abortion or not. She is under care of the state, which complicates matters, as I understand from the report that parental consent is not needed under Florida law.

Is she too immature to have an abortion?
Obviously you have to ask the question why a 13 or (probably at the time) 12 year old is having sex anyway.

Personally, I think this is an extreme decision.

Any thoughts?

2

To not allow her an abortion is extremely cruel. Having a child at that age will probably ruin her life. Even if she gives it away she will have to miss some school, and this will likely influence her relationship with her friends/classmates. (I am assuming that she is going to school.) Children at that age easily experiment with sex if there is no good parental guidance. Why should the child be punished? Whoever should have been looking after her, be it state or parent obviously failed in doing so.

3

I guess killing a baby isn’t cruel at all.

That’s about the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard. How about the baby inside her? You don’t think it’s life would be rather ruined if it was sucked out of her?

Well oh no. Miss some school. That’s just the end of the world.

Why should the BABY be punished?

Yes, it’s OBVIOUSLY someone else’s fault. :loco: Pass the biscuit.

4

It’s against all human rights to not let the girl make her own choice. Abortion is a stupid topic in the US right now, it’s her body let her do whatever the f*ck she wants to do with it.

5

And there’s the two arguments. Can we leave off it now, or must we suffer through yet another endless and inconclusive multi-page series of rants, flames and flounders on the pro-choice vs. right to life (or whatever its called) debate. Its been totally done to death many times over.

6

(Sorry Sandman)

She might as well go ahead and have the baby–looks like her life is screwed either way. Perhaps being forced to raise it and seeing how much of her youth she has to give up will teach her to keep her legs crossed next time.

She could always do the Janet Jackson thing and have her parents or sister raise the child–perhaps the parents should pay for the baby since they sort of forgot to teach their kid about birth control.

Josefuf is right–abortion is wrong. If we let everyone get abortions, we humans will never reach our goal of choaking to death in eachother’s farts. Josefuf–I left my homeland to escape the anti-abortion hysteria that has unfortunately swept it. Please don’t rain on my parade. Why should the baby be punished? It isn’t a baby–it is a fetus that isn’t any smarter than the mosquito you swatted the other day.

7

Discussion is fun. Just because I state my point of view doesn’t mean that I will get angry when somebody disagrees with me. I don’t see argument as a tool to change somebody else’s mind about something, but rather as a way to get to know them better (e.g. I know something more now about the Josefus character than I did before).

8

Very true. But don’t worry, I won’t go blowing up any clinics.

9

who would think of teaching thier child about birth control when they are 12?! what age are we in… sigh.

10

The abortion debate is the most boring one of all.

A) You cannot kill a foetus because God says so
B) I don’t believe in God, or I don’t believe in your definition of when life begins

A) You are a murderer, plain and simple
B) You are a barbarian from the middle ages condemning a child to a life of hell to satisfy your arrogant piety

repeat ad infinitum

11

I agree that there are no easy answers here regarding abortion, and everybody’s viewpoint is deeply personal. I also think in this case however, nobody comes out of it looking good.

One of the other issues here though is, can a 13 year old make a rational decision about anything?

Its a difficult one to call.

Thanks for all your input/thoughts

12

sad to say, but you’d be surprised what primary school students are up to nowadays … booze, drugs and sex.

13

Leaving the discussion about whether or not the decision to abort should be allowed women, there’s a glaring inconsistency in this case.

The court has ruled that a 13 year old girl is too immature to make this decision.

Presumably they think she is mature enough to bear and raise a child.

:loco:

Brian

14

I don’t know how these people sleep at night. Forcing a 13 year old girl to go through a pregnancy and give birth? And then what? Will these sanctimonious old farts offer to raise her baby for her? No way! But if any of their daughters were in the same position, they’d be straight off to the abortion clinic!

You can have great fun with this argument, because the Pro-lifers force themselves into holding a position where it is never acceptable to end a human life, or to prevent one from starting. Once you get them to admit that in some circumstances it is right to kill, then you’ve won, basically.

Usually, however, they resort to name calling before you can get that far, which is why I don’t do it any more.

Poor girl, though. Thirteen, no money, bringing up a baby and going to school. Some life for her or the baby. I like the way these smug self-righteous bastards want to fuck this girl’s life up for their own intellectual amusement. They no doubt also support the death penalty and the war in Iraq.

15

And they probably only want her to have the baby so that they can eat it. :wink:

16
17

I’d say that there are a lot of assumptions being made here. We don’t know how the gir conceived. It may have been with a boyfriend, or it could have been her old man or the sex offender down the street. It makes a difference in how we might see the girl’s plight, no?

We also are assuming that she will have to raise the child. I’d thought that she would be forced to give it up because I don’t think there are many facilities for raising your child while you’re in the care of the state. Do they find her a foster home that agrees to take her child as well? Will they decide that she is mature enough to make this decision on her own, to keep the baby or not, six months after they decided she couldn’t decide to keep the pregnancy or not? I doubt she’ll get a say in if she raises it or not.

Someone else said that her life is pretty much screwed up anyway. I agree with that. Someone else said that she might have to miss some school and that her relations with her peers would be affected if she has to have the baby. I agree with that, as well. But the same would happen if she had an abortion at three months.

If she has the abortion, she’ll have to live a life time with that knowledge. It may be something that haunts her, or she may feel perfectly justified about it, depending on her life and how she became pregnant. She may see kids on the street that would have been her child’s age and feel horrible, even when she has other kids some day.

If she has the child and gives it up, she’ll have to live a life time with that knowledge as well. There are different issues. She didn’t kill it, but he or she is out there somewhere. Does it have a better life than she does? Does she want to meet him/her? What about when she has other kids some day? Just many things she’ll always think of.

If she keeps it, how does she raise a child when she doesn’t even have her own parents to parent her? This girl is in State care so doesn’t even have her own home, usually these kids are foster care or group houses that they must leave at 18 or upon being sent to jail.

So, it does seem like her life is already screwed up. What surprizes me is that the State isn’t trying to force her to HAVE an abortion so that there won’t be one more child it has to care for.

I, for one, do not agree with abortion, as I’ve said before. A fetus, tiny and no more intelligent than a mosquito, is a living being that is human. It is born a baby. And at three months, by the way, a fetus is much larger and more intelligen that a mosquito. Anyway, this is a child, too, just like his/her mother, who deserves at least the same care and protection. My two NT.

18

That 13 year old is not mature enough to make a decision about having an abortion. If she were, she wouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first place! Besides, at what age do you think children can start making life decisions without guidance and (YES) control by their parent(s)???

19

A big problem with American culture is that we treat children like adults and treat adults like children.

As to this 13-year old raising a child, that should be heavily discouraged. This girl’s rights as a mother should be outweighed by the rights of the child. How is it in the best interest of the baby to be raised by a child? What disappoints me is that adoption isn’t encouraged more. Giving up a child for adoption still has a huge stigma attached to it, even in America.

As to the whole abortion debate, any rationality is lost as the two extreme positions have their ritual scream-off. I believe that a woman should be able to have an abortion up to five months after conception, and that banning abortions after the 5th month is correct. After that, I believe that abortion is murder, since at that point you are destroying what is at that point a sentient being. I also believe that abortion should be legal if the mother’s life is in physical danger (and no–a note from a doctor that the stress of giving birth is a danger doesn’t do it).

I welcome any alternative points of view. Tell me where you believe I’m wrong.

20

Decidedly bizarre logic, though tigerman has already pointed out that you seem to enjoy arguing for and against the same thing at the same time so not too suprising.

BTWyou can also take many of the pro-choice arguments to their logical conclusion and ask why you shouldn’t be allowed to kill the kid even a few months after birth. It still is totally dependent on others and cannot fend for itself, and at least by that stage you get to really know if you can or cannot cope with bringing the kid up.