A commenter writes, "Abortion rights advocates declare any [pregnant] female is mature enough to obtain an abortion without parental consent. That means girls are mature enough to make [decisions] in picking sex partners."
I don't think this works. Judgments about age cutoffs for various behavior (driving, sex, smoking, alcohol consumption, abortion, other medical procedures, contracting) rightly turn on a variety of factors, including the cost of prohibiting the behavior as well as the cost of immature behavior. We let people drive before we let them drink because not being able to drive imposes a much greater burden on older teenagers (and on their parents and prospective employers and educators) than does not being able to drink. Likewise, stopping a girl from having an abortion could harm her future life much more than stopping a girl from having sex would.
Now of course one could argue that letting girls have abortions without parental consent harms their future lives, too, or that it violates their parents' rights or whatever else. My point is simply that one can't just assume that the age cutoffs for the decision to have an abortion must be the same as the age cutoffs for sex, drinking, smoking, driving, or contracting. It's true that the age cutoffs for all of these do have to do with our judgment about maturity — but they also have to do with other matters that may justify different age cutoffs for different behaviors.
(Note that the current federal constitutional rule is that state law may require underage girls to get parental consent for abortion, though it must provide the option of a judicial bypass on the grounds that "the young woman is mature and capable of giving informed consent and has, in fact, given her informed consent" or "that an abortion would be in her best interests." But some state constitutional rules give broader abortion rights to underage girls, and, as the commenter suggests, some abortion rights advocates do support such broad rights for girls.)
Related Posts (on one page):
- "Statutory Rape" in The Reader:
- Romeo-and-Juliet Laws as Reflecting Lesser Moral Responsibility of 16-Year-Olds?
- The Academic Credo
- Ages of Consent for Various Purposes:
- Age of Consent:
Age to enlist, commit your life for five years (or more due to Stop-Loss), and die for your country serving in Iraq: 18
Age to drink a cold beer on a hot day: 21
In this sense, driving may be a model for abortion policy: in most states you can get a learner's permit (with parental consent) at age 15 and a full license at 16. It might be appropriate in abortion policy to require parental approval below the age of 16 and only parental notification below the ages of 16 and 18, though I suggest the actual ages and rules are best left to decisions by individual states.
Rubbish. Saving a human life is never harmful, nor is keeping someone from becoming a murderer ever wrong.
That being said, and although I support abortion laws similar to El Salvador's, this:
is a silly argument. There's no reason to think that the decision to have sex is at all equivalent to the decision to have an abortion - abortion is about the unborn child and its rights, while the age of consent is about the underage person and protecting their rights. Or do you you want to claim that underage girls can/should be able to have sex with parental consent?
(I suppose that it is also true that, if Congress can pass a federal "partial birth abortion" statute, it could also enact a uniform consent requirement. But it hasn't, and state constitutional rules would presumably then not be a defense.)
Good lord these threads are starting to creep me out.
Gee, thanks for clearing that up. If only we had known, we wouldn't have had 40 years of debate on the matter.
If you don't see a difference between human skin cells and a genetically unique, self-directing human organism, then I think there is an impasse.
You're not a very good scientist if that's what you think.
I can't wait until the first cloned human appears...
Aren't you supposed to deny that this is what unethical people like you are moving towards? Way to let the cat out of the bag, Zachy.
I don't even quite understand this. Stopping a girl from having sex would harm her future? Her future depends on teenage sex? Or did you mean to say:
Likewise, stopping a girl from having an abortion could harm her future life much more than stopping a girl from having sex would benefit her future.
This doesn't make sense either. Both "not stopping her from having an abortion" and "stopping her from having sex" have the same result (from a cold calculating perspective). No pregnancy.
Hhmm, I'm superstitious if I think there is a difference between an entire self-directing human organism and a skin cell. I dunno - I think it's pretty well self-evident that there is me as a human being, and that I'm different from my hair or skin or amputated finger.
I'm no scientist nor representative of the pope, but I'm pretty sure that cloning isn't as earth-shattering as you think it is. Identical twins occur when one fertilized egg splits in two, and you get two self-directing human organisms. To me, cloning seems similar. As long as a self-directing human organism is created, whether it be through cloning or twinning, you've got something fundamentally different from skin cells.
He is obviously against religion--but in the same thread in which he shows absolute contempt toward the Catholic Church, he also has the audacity to a) predict future Catholic theology and then b) mock it.
Note, I am not Catholic. But I am against strawman arguments. They do not advance any debate.
Its much more interesting to explore the ramifications of the different ages of consent, and the justifications of the different ages.
All of the age limit justifications make perfect sense if you look at them from the perspective of a middle aged feminist who hates America (basically, your typical leftist):
Abortion - no age limit because it is the ultimate way to proclaim that you're a liberated woman. And because the West is, presumably, patriarchial and oppressive, nothing should come between a woman and the altar of abortion, including a pesky thing like age.
Sex - The only real age limits involving these aren't limits on how old you can be before you have sex, but how old your partner is. Feminists would be happy if preschoolers were having sex with each other.
Drinking - Age limits because it encourages older men to have sex, and that means that it's encouraging older men to be pigs. Young people need no encouragement to have sex, alcohol is wasted on them.
Driving Licenses - Age limits here have little to do with liberation and sex, so the limits might actually make sense here.
Marry - Age limits here will be raised and raised (they're only so low because the laws were written when men ran things). Marriage is an oppressive traditionalist institution anyway that must be abolished, so the limits will be raised.
Really? So one conjoined twin has the right to kill the other, if the other refuses consent to surgery to separate them, or agrees to a surgery date more than 9 months in the future?
The Catholic Church would agree; that's why it believes that killing the product of either process is immoral.
The Church will declare no such thing.
Hokay, you find the Trinity laughable. But presumably you believe in both Relativity and Quantum Mechanics? At the same time?
I am a metaphysicist and I [break wind] in your general direction.
Nonsense. It isn't a human life or something that can be murdered until it's got a conscious identity. That's well after birth, not before. A comatose person is already dead, a fetus isn't a living person yet.
So, just for shits and grins, why don't you explain the scientific evidence that demonstrates that you, yourself have a conscious identity. I mean, for all we know you're just a blob of cells banging non-sense on a keyboard. And if you are just another blob of cells, heck why is this thing taking up space in this world, eating food, &breathing air while all the other real humans are suffering?
And if you think that our laws allow you to kill someone for touching you, you better not have a gun on you when you get onto a crowded bus, or there are going to be a lot of dead people that jostled you, and you will be going to prison for life.
considering the quality of posts we get on the internet, this is an intriguing theory :)
present company excepted of course.
(except for you HATTIO!!! ) :)
What I do find amazing, however, is how liberals insist that trying 14 year olds for murder as adults is unfair, unconstitutional, etc., while insisting that 14 year olds have a constitutionally protected liberty interest in having sex with adults, and 12 year olds should be free to decide on an abortion without parental interference. Too immature to be held responsible for murder? But not too immature to be having sex or having an abortion? What's with that (other than the liberal enthusiasm for letting 14 year old murderers wander the streets)?
I suppose if birth control was not readily available or was stigmatized in our society, there might be some excuse for how commonly abortion is used as birth control. But that doesn't describe any part of America that I have ever lived in.
To bring this back to the original question: one of the reasons for discouraging minors from having sex, regardless of whether the partner is their age or 30, is that the average minor is about as responsible with birth control and STD prevention as they are with driving, alcohol, cleaning their room, and personal hygiene. We went through an awful period when my daughter was about 12 or 13 where the sharing of hairbrushes with her girlfriends meant frequent episodes with RID and lice killing detergents.
By the way: some pigs just flew by outside my window: J.F. Thomas and I actually agreed that there is something a bit creepy about a 30 year old pursuing a 16 year old for sex. Yes, there are some very mature 16 year olds out there--but darn few. And yes, there are some pretty immature 30 year olds out there. But we have laws on this because there is a perception (and I think with good reason) that most adults pursuing sex with minors who are 10, 15, 20, and 30 years younger than them are exploitive creeps who are obssessed with how tight the orifices are, and prepared to use whatever manipulation is required to take advantage of an immature kid.
'... abortion is not terminating a "human life." Eggs (fertilized or not) and sperm, not to mention skin cells, are "human" and "life" '
Abortion is not limited to terminating eggs and sperm; it can legally terminate on a fetus that's in quite an advanced stage of development. If a fetus is truly a non-person then how come some state laws make killing a fetus an act of murder unless done by a doctor in the course of an abortion?
BTW what kind of a scientist are you? Do you know about the theory of Dark Energy (not to be confused with Dark Matter) in cosmology? Tell me how that theory differs from theology.
This isn't that insane of a theory. If you want to debate when life begins, looking at mental development is entirely reasonable. There are steps when the brain exists, when cortical activity starts, and when the being become self-aware. (None of these steps coincide with birth. Some are before, some are after.)
To my knowledge, anyone under the age of 18 who wishes to have a doctor perform any non-emergency medical procedure needs to get consent from a parent or guardian of said child.
Is this a law, or general medical practice?
And why does there seem to be a special exemption for the invasive medical procedure known as abortion? Why does it need its own law?
Well, from purely morals ðics standpoint, to justify abortion on ethics grounds, one must either:
Justify arbitrary distinctions between that which is human and that which is not when there is a lack of clear scientific evidence of what precisely differentiates the human from the non-human;
Or ignoring that issue and just assuming humanity none-the-less, justifying arbitrary power of life and death of one human being over another human being.
Given that the Holocaust and other episodes of genocide have been rationalized on one of the above justifications, the invocation of Godwin is apt.
One is a (as yet undescribed) force.
One is an (undescribable) consciousness.
No, it isn't. It's a theory called Eugenics.
It's not insane, it's simply immoral.
That said...
I don't know the answer, but I disagree with it. In general, I think a lot of ages of consent are too high and give parents too much legal control over their offspring too late into those people's lives. It's why I don't tend to agree with in loco parentis applied to high school students - "parental rights" are only ever rights held in trust, with the parent acting solely in loco ego (I hope I got the latin right: in place of the self). By the time someone's 15 or 16, there's no longer any justification for that parental possession of the person's own rights regarding themselves, so parental consent really shouldn't, in my mind, be required for anything. Granted, it may well still be desirable policy on some things for a person still not to be able to consent to something, but as I see it the best way to deal with it is often going to just be that nobody can give that consent, not that the parent be authorized to consent despite the objections of the person they're making the decision for.
One issue that shouldn't be overlooked: the main reason that is given for allowing girls to obtain a judge's consent for an abortion instead of parental consent is that someone in the home may be abusing the girl. In other words, the cases of 'age of consent to sex' and 'age of consent to abortion', though they differ, are also directly linked in at least one important way.
Of course you didn't find anyone who could correctly explain it. That's because it's what theologians call a "mystery."
Or perhaps what you meant was that no one could correctly define it (i.e., they got the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. mixed up with the virginal conception of Jesus)?
How does this work? The law bends to make sure that a 12 year old can get an abortion because someone in the home may be sexually abusing her--and if she gives birth, it will expose the sexual abuse. And the law bends to make sure that she can get an abortion to help hide that she is being sexually abused. Odd: the law always helps to hide the sexual abuser. Why is that?
1) Because the pregnancy could have been caused by abuse by the parent. (Of course, abuse may cause a child to need other sorts of operations, but rarely are those operations elective.)
2) Because a parent who learns that their daughter wants an abortion may abuse the daughter. In theory, a parent could abuse a child for anything, but the reality is that even abusive parents probably won't say "any child of mine who wants a scar removed will be thrown out into the street". Abusive parents don't react to abortions like they do to other sorts of operations.
3) Because the decision about abortion has consequences that will continue past when the child becomes an adult.
On the other hand, Planned Parenthood does its best to make evidence unavailable that would allow a child molester to be charged and convicted.
So explain to me why the creep would prevent the abortion? Or is it really about protecting whatever creep impregnated a 13 year old?
This is as least a plausible argument. But since there is a significant problem with parents forcing abortions on a child to avoid the shame of a pregnant 13 year old, whatever happened to a girl's "right to choose"? Hence, the law Idaho just passed that criminalizing forcing someone to have an abortion (and of course, there were a few legislators who claim to be pro-choice--but wouldn't vote for a woman's right to choose life).
Again, it seems that the whole system is set up for "Heads, she has a right to an abortion; tails, she doesn't have a right to say no to an abortion."
You're assuming a perfectly rational child molester, which may not necessarily be so.
But since there is a significant problem with parents forcing abortions on a child to avoid the shame of a pregnant 13 year old, whatever happened to a girl's "right to choose"?
Huh?
Are you suggesting that not telling the parents about the abortion encourages parents to force abortions? That makes no sense.
And this statement seems to be on target:
"The opposition to Justice Owen is not really about abortion rights, it is about abortion profits.
"Simply put, the abortion industry is opposed to parental notice laws because parental notice laws place a hurdle between them and the profits from the abortion clients -- not the girls who come to them, but the adult men who pay for these abortions.
"These adult men, whose average age rises the younger the girl is, are eager not to be disclosed to parents, sometimes living down the street.
"At nearly one million abortions per year, the abortion industry is as big as any corporate interest that lobbies in Washington. They not only ignore the rights of parents, they also protect sexual offenders and statutory rapists."
~ Sen. Orrin Hatch
Anyway, age of consent:
If the girl is pregnant at an age when she is too young to be having sex, her parents ought to know about it. It is their job to protect the physical and emotional well-being of their children. Most of the kids who get pregnant before the age of consent have older boyfriends (as in, five to ten years older, not a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy). These men encourage abortion, not for her sake, but to cover up their wrongdoing. (The Texas polygamous sect is a startling example of how the presence of children can be used to prove statutory rape.) Girls who abort are ten times as likely as their never-pregnant peers to attempt suicide.
Given that, I would argue that there is an even greater reason to ensure that parents know whether or not their under-age daughters are pregnant. Underage girls who are experiencing a crisis pregnancy need help in a way that is fundamentally different from that needed by a 16-year-old girl who wants to sleep with her steady boyfriend.
Michigan also passed a Coercive Abortion Prevention Act. The hard-core wing of the pro-choice movement hates them, as it apparently infantilises women or some related b.s..
For what it's worth, my opinion is this: a parent attempting to prevent their daughter from getting an abortion is committing child abuse and should be punished accordingly. A parent attempting to coerce their daughter into getting an abortion is committing child abuse and should be punished accordingly. The end. In principle, criminalization of efforts to force abortion on girls and women is a wonderful thing (I think it's a terrible choice for her to make, but she does have the right to choose carry to term, regardless of what I or her relatives think, and the law needs to defend that right). And if it doesn't get twisted into an impediment to desired abortions, then in practice it will be as well. At the same time, a parent doesn't have a right to deny their daughter an abortion she does want, which makes "parental consent" laws bogus, and makes parental notification highly suspect: what's the point of telling the parent, except to give them an opportunity to interfere?
Remember: parents don't have rights. People have rights, and because of unnecessarily high age-of-consent laws, people get stuck with their parents holding their rights in trust - sometimes (as here, when used to prevent an abortion) to their detriment.
See, that's where your argument falls apart. She does have that right under the Supreme Court's mangled interpretation of the Constitution (I believe the ruling was referred to as "Blackmun's abortion"), but query whether our laws ought to acknowledge that tortured, results-oriented logic.
One could just as easily argue that a parent who permits her daughter to get an abortion is committing child abuse -- against that parent's grandchild. Some of us to think that sanction for abortion amounts to forcing your beliefs on a person too young to care for herself - both the pregnant daughter and the unborn child. Everyone would recognise the right of a 40-something adult to interfere with abuse that his daughter, of any age, would mete out to his grandchild. In fact, if the parent/grandparent stepped in, we would be thankful. Were it to be the same before birth....
If you write the unborn child out of the equation, of course it's simply a matter of what she can do with her own body (and whether or not that is consistent with other parental consent laws, and the validity of such laws). If it were just her own body, though, she wouldn't be pregnant, and it wouldn't be an issue.
Whether or not you so intend, the logical extension of what you advocate is for the government to hold the rights of minors. This is already happening - parents are told that they do not have rights over their 17-year-olds, then over their 15-year-olds; are we really surprised when the government takes a "Hand over your baby or else" approach to parenting? I'm sorry, but if I grow a baby, it is both my responsibility to care for it and my right to determine that care as best I see fit, with government interference limited to preventing abuse. Sorry. If the government wants rights over a child, the goverment can get knocked up and spend nine months with swollen ankles. If a teenager wants rights, he/she can make a motion to be legally emancipated. Otherwise, he can acquire this thing we like to call "maturity" and understand that his parents have been around the block a few more times than he has.
The entire issue comes down to this: Between the following individuals/entities, who/what is the best equipped to make decisions regarding this specific child, which are in the best interests of this specific child?
1) The parents of that child, who happened to have, ya know, parented the child in question;
2) the 15-year-old; or
3) the government.
My vote is for #1.
Why do you assume that it is to the detriment of someone to be denied an abortion? Consider that 93% of women regret their abortions, and there are six times as many post-abortive women in National Right to Life as there are in NARAL. Have you ever seen the "I regret my abortion" signs that post-abortive women hold up in front of the Supreme Cout every year?
Consider that we are talking about scared teenagers, who think that their parents will kill them, their lives will be over, and that this situation is hopeless, terrifying, and will never end. (I'm sorry; I was a very mature teenager, but I still remember what it was like. It's very, very hard for even the long-term thinkers to believe that their lives will improve.)
The parents of teenagers who get pregnant can help those girls to understand that they can keep their child, get their education, and have the life they want. If we really live in a society in which women are given the "choice" between dismembering their unborn babies - whoops, foetuses - and having an education, then we live in a screwed-up society that needs fixing... and, last time I checked, adults are in a better position to make those changes. They can also help their scared daughters to understand that the fear they feel at age 15 is not the fear that will be there for the rest of their lives - that they are not, thankfully, doomed to be age 15 forever.
The Texas polygamous sect is a startling example of how bad an idea it is to inform the parents. If one of the underage girls in the compound wanted to get an abortion, and her parents were told, I can guarantee you the sect would make life hell for her.
Red herring. Age of consent laws all have judicial bypass procedures. Last time I checked, "I don't want to tell my parents because they forced me to marry a man three times my age who already has two wives" will justify the bypass.
If she's being raped, it's even more imperative for her to speak to an adult about this, not just to abort the kid and then head back to the compound for some more 50-year-old raping.
From what I understand, a lot of studies of post-abortive women (I've seen a handful of them) either get the women immediately after an abortion, in which most women are relieved, more than anything; however, as time goes on, women who were initially relieved begin to regret their decision.