This link is in reference to a rather heated argument I got into a few days ago. Arguments can be great because people learn new things! I got to wondering what Planned Parenthood’s stance is on a situation where a very young girl gets pregnant from rape and wants to keep the child.
I think others in the conversation assumed that the pro choice stance is that you should have a legal right to force your child to get an abortion against their will, esp if it is a rape and/or there could be a medical risk to the child to carry it to term. This got me to wondering what the current laws are.
This link answers that question. Here it clearly states that Planned Parenthood, and any other abortion providers, are not legally allowed to give a girl an abortion without her consent.
So, to refer back to an earlier discussion, even if the girl is very young and it would be medically ill-advised for her to carry it, she is still legally protected to do so.
By the way, ectopic terminations, as with miscarriages, are not considered abortions by pro life lobbyists, and currently no doctor in the country (who doesn’t want to be sued for medical malpractice) would deny this service to someone, even the most rigorous pro life doctor. I would think when it comes to life-saving medical treatments in general, such as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, a parent is allowed to supersede what the pregnant child may want.
I would, of course, hope that the child would never insist on keeping a pregnancy that would be medically risky, or worse, threaten her life. Although I’m guessing there are situations when they are not being supervised at all, or worse, stuck with an abuser, or even the very person who impregnated them. In the case of the 10-year old girl, she eventually reported to having been raped by the same person on two different occasions, and no one knew until long after the second attack, which makes me suspect she was being neglected.
But for older teenage pregnant girls, say 15-18, which I’m guessing accounts for the bulk of teen pregnancies, a healthy to-term pregnancy becomes less of a medical risk to the mother. In these cases, I’m guessing it becomes emotionally easier as a parent to give the older pregnant girl complete autonomy to decide what is best for her.
As troublesome of a fact as it may be for the concerned parent of a pregnant girl, the pro choice position is meant to protect a girl or woman’s right to choose, even if the parent thinks it is a bad idea. It seems too often in the last few decades, the rhetoric of the pro choice activists seem to have shifted to become pro abortion, always quick to roll out talking points for why an abortion makes the most sense. I would think it would behoove the movement, now that it has to be defended on a state level, to realign with what is in their very name and their original seeming intent: to protect a woman’s (or girl’s) right to choose, not to convince her to get an abortion.
I am a bit troubled by the lack of clarity created when Planned Parenthood refers to people under 18 as ‘women.’ I think it is important to remember that these people are girls, not women. I’m not sure why they are so inexact with their language.
So, forced abortions are against the law in this country, regardless of circumstances or age, as far as I can tell from included link. If anyone has evidence that contradicts this info, feel free to post here. I am always learning new things.
What do you all think of this law?
Tales from the Little Shed 