This case was a sort of tester for the UK (the country with the highest rate of underage pregnancy in western Europe) regarding the question of whether a parent or parents have a right to know whether their kids are having abortions or are being advised on abortions. Given that doctors are obliged to never try to dissuade a woman/girl who has asked for an abortion unless there’s a serious medical risk I think that the whole system is skewed - indeed, a spokewoman for the Brook Advisory Centre has just been chastised heavily on the radio for referring to 13 year old girls who are getting abortions as ‘young women’. This is exactly the sort of thing that irritates me immensely, a 13 year old girl is not a ‘young woman’, she’s a child. And if she’s pregnant (an emotionally powerful experience, I’d imagine, regardless of age) then treating her as though she were an adult is gross folly because unless she’s extremely mature I’d say that she simply doesn’t have the emotional fortitude to make that decision without the caring advice of someone they trust (i.e a parent or other responsible adult).
I can’t help but feel that this is the real arse end of the ‘woman’s right to choose’ - we are forcing individualism onto people. How Sartrean. How very, very stupid.
I’m not sure we’re forcing individualism here, because we’re neglecting the rights of certain other individuals, namely the parents. Society grants rights and consequently demands responsibilites. Parents are legally responsible for their children - their welfare, their caring, their food and shelter. Yet their rights as parents are ignored as they are asked to step aside and not be counted, or even consulted, in one of the most important decisions their 13-year old daughter ever will make in her life. Just doesn’t make sense.
Of course, I’m not looking for ‘it’s my right???’ or ‘will someone PLEASE think of the CHILDREN!!!’ sorts of responses, more people who had some thought on this.
As an analogy - should a doctor be able to advise and treat a patient who is, say, addicted to cannabis who is only 13 without telling the parents?
Does said cannabis pop out of the child’s cooter after nine months? If not, I am going to have to say your analogy is lacking the required cooter element.
Here in america, hundred of underage children are in jail
or on death row, being convicted of murder as an “adult”,
children as young as 11. Yet, underage abortion, god forbid,
they are children, who fall under the care of their parents,
heaven forbid the state from taking rights from parents about
their children. Yet, those children get convicted as “adults”
for murder. Now either they are really children,
unable to vote, unable to drink, can’t get into contracts,
restricted licences, the whole nine yards or they are not,
in which case you can convict them of murder as “adults”
And if they are not, then you must give them equal rights
as adults. You can’t have it both ways.
Of course this is true. But I think it’s important from time to time to ask ourselves how much power over individual lives we ought to, as individuals, concede to the state. This is a case, it seems to me, where the state has, in a backdoor way, interfered with my power to raise my 13-year old daughter as I see fit, including my power to give to her direction and consultation about important matters such as pregnancy. (While at the same time holding me personally accountable for raising her, and having absolutely no qualms conferring responsibilities upon me in this regard).
I’m in danger now of hijacking SAITD’s thread and going into one of my famous rants about individuals versus collectives so I think I should stop. But you’ve granted much to the state here in a way that makes it appear as though these constraints are understood and assumed. I’m saying that the ‘constraints of the law’ ought to be considered seriously. Just how much ‘law’ should the state dictate? What is the argument (besides force) that declares the state should even be in the parens patriae business? Or be in the marriage-sanctioning business for that matter?
Again, this might be beyond this thread’s scope. Perhaps sometime soon I’ll start one more appropriate to state versus individual.
Absolutely Not. For a man to survive and remain physically and mentally fit he must have these things, as such they are required elements:
Air
Water
Food
Cooter
Or if you’re looking for a different analogy. If a doctor finds out that a 13 year old girl is sexually active, can they tell the parents?
There is the key of whether the doctor/patient priviledge can be broken and for what circumstances. You have to weigh the abilities of people to keep their medical records secret from all prying eyes and the ability to parent your children.
Part of the difficulty of having teenagers, albeit 13 is young, I’m not disputing that, is the threat of them wanting to have sex and you as a parent not wanting them to, or wanting to know about it. Do they have a right to privacy?
You can say that they are dependent upon you (living in your house, dependent on your income), but then what about a wife who is unemployed and living in her spouses home? Can her husband pry into her medical file whenever he wants too? The dr/patient priviledge is a tricky matter when weighing against the right to know of parents, because you have to define where lines must be drawn.
Personally I’m in favor of more privacy than not. I believe that if I raise some kids, that I can make them believe that they could come to me in this situation and no matter how mad I might be, I would still help them in whatever way I can. They are not my slaves, but my children. And if they are having abortions at 13, I’ve already done something wrong and they might not be able to trust my judgement in this case anyway.
If a 13 year old girl is raped a doctor will let the parents know (as well as a child services or some other protective group). If a child cuts off a finger and is rushed to the hospital the parents will be notified. If a child faints and is sent to the hospital the parents will be notified.
Why should a parent NOT be advised when a child has a medical situation?
This is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the parent should be informed. We aren’t talking about what is necessary for survival…
Interestingly the reason given for not telling the parents was that this might lead to situation ‘where the child would do something that they might later regret’. Like a 13 year old girl who is pregnant and considering an abortion hasn’t already done something that they’ll regret later…
Whatismore preventing the parents from finding out is probably more likely to produce a situation where the child will regret their decision.
There is no distinction between matured adult and underaged children. Both are complete fuckups half of the time. There is only distinction between Multhusian starvation and Schumpeterian growth. If the UK fertility rate accelerates over a certain time period with a certain alarming value, be becasue its teens can’t keep their dicks inside their pants, then the country’s economy will slowdown. With the economy declining, the nulpiality rate and hence the fertility rate will decrease. Here according to this self adjusting model regarding population, economists will tell everybody to chill because, it’s not a problem. However in this case, they are wrong by not being pragnmatic. Teenagers will keep on getting pregnant exogeneously as a factor that is potentially influencial to the economy. If this potential is proved to be realistic for the UK, then we have on our hands a much more significant problem than worrying about parental right versus domestic freedom, an issue which Trisha Goddad seem to be able to take care for us with her thirty minute television show. Abortion in such cases are probably the only technologyical device available now that can be uemployed to curb the economic effect of premature pregnancy. The problem thus is theoretically, no longer threatening. Unfortunately we have another problem here, we have myriads of ethicists who want to ban abortion just becasue their tender heart can’t seem to cope with it. Some of them seriously seek biological evidence regarding information such as the feteuos maturing procedure, in order to comfort themselves into a certain acceptance zone for abortion. These are activists from the bored and boring part of the public, and their advocate yet bloodsucker lawyers, politicians and a certain scientists who are not content with their scientific studies alone. Economists stand in utter hopelessness, watching ignorant people in power hesitate over whether abortion should be legalised for the sake of piling up votes, from those among the public whose lofty moral stupidity has been, the, problem of civilisational deficiency. I feel like playing piano sonata Pathetique.
Or, for another twist, what if a girl is having an underage incestuous affair with her brother and becomes pregnant? To me the parents should really be informed in such a situation, there’s no obvious reason why they shouldn’t be told…