Parental Rights?

[Mabeline]

During a run by I found this article, this is one reason I do support parents right to know what is going on with their children.

-------------------------
When a Parent Doesn't Know
Mother Not Told of Thirteen-Year Old's Abortion

BY ANNE KNIGHT

On Friday morning, July 30, 2004, Diana Lopez, a divorced mother of four young children, was awakened by a phone call. The call was from a staff member at the middle school that her two oldest children attend, Memorial Academy in San Diego. Lopez recounted that the staff member told her that her 13-year-old daughter had been taken to the hospital because she was bleeding. Lopez states that when she asked what had happened to her daughter, the staff member's response was that they didn't know and that her daughter's boyfriend's mother had come to take her to the hospital.

Lopez's 14-year-old daughter then called Lopez, revealing that her 13-year-old sister was about to get an abortion at Planned Parenthood. "I just started screaming," Lopez recalled. Lopez spoke to the staff member again and asked what she should do and how she could find her daughter. Lopez said that the staff member replied that she didn't know what to do and suggested that Lopez contact the police.

Lopez says that she was not aware that her daughter was pregnant. She later learned that the mother of her 13-year-old daughter's boyfriend (also 13) had orchestrated the abortion. On the morning that the school called her, the boyfriend's mother had arranged to pick up Lopez's 13-year-old daughter at the school and take her to Planned Parenthood for the abortion. The 13-year-old was then four months pregnant and had had laminaria inserted. As she walked with her older sister to school that morning, she began experiencing severe cramps and bleeding. Upon arriving at the school office, her older sister asked to use the phone, intending to call the boyfriend's mother.

The 14-year-old told the school that her 13-year-old sister was to be taken to Planned Parenthood that day by the boyfriend's mother for an abortion. Lopez asserts that, because of the 14-year-old's explanation to school staff, the school was aware that the 13-year-old was scheduled to have an abortion at Planned Parenthood before they called her.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.sdnewsnotes.com/ed/articles/2005/0501ak.htm

[HEyHEY]

1. It's her daughter's body

Mom can fuck off. We would charge her for punching her...so why should she have the right to know this stuff?

[radwriter0555]

2. Mrs. Lopez should have kept better track of her daughter before she

got pregnant. A child who apparently had the wherewithall to decide to have sex apparently was cognizant enough to know she needed an abortion too.

What difference would it have made if the child was forced to notify the parent? The potential to die in childbirth or while undergoing an abortion under another hand were precisely the same...

Far too little, far too late.

[hughee99]

12. Should we consider lowering the age of consent, then?

If a 13 year old has the "wherewithall" to decide to have sex and is cognizant enough to know that she needed an abortion, should we consider the possibility that 13 year olds know "what's best for them" at this age? Can they legally consent to sex, drive a car, drop out of school, buy cigarettes, gamble and drink (all are age based)? Should that also be the age that a parent no longer has any legal responsibility to the child? I'm all for notifying a parent of any such behavior before a certain age, though I'm not sure what age that should be. Is 13 the right age?

[AliciaKeyedUp]

25. That's an idiotic statement

No parent can watch a child 24-7. It's impossible.

As for the difference, the mother could have been there, instead of strangers who have no right to make such decisions. I am wildly pro-choice, but some children are too young to make decisions like this without parents.

[Liberty Belle]

3. The fact that Mom would've urged her daughter to have the baby...

is exactly why the girl didn't go to her mother. She probably knew how her Mom would react, but felt she wasn't up to the responsibilities of motherhood, the stigma of being a pregnant high school student (or middle school, given her young age), or the trauma of giving a child up for adoption.

While this scenario is troubling, I'd find it equally troubling if the state had prohibited the daughter from seeking outside help, and the mother had forced this young girl to give birth.

If my daughter were pregnant, I'd try to persuade her not to have an abortion under most circumstances, but ultimately I believe that anyone old enough to be pregnant is old enough to make their own decision, ultimately.

[Undercover Owl]

4. 13 year olds have no business giving birth

What a twisted mother, wanting her 13 year old daughter to stay pregnant & keep the baby! That's horrifying.

[radwriter0555]

8. Agreed, VERY dark ages and archaic.

How horrible!

[Liberty2001]

16. The flip side ...

Tell the daughter its ok to have sex at such a young age, get pregnant, and hey, no consequences because you can just get rid of that highly inconvenient blob of tissue.

A young girl told me once about her mother ... got pregnant at 12, 13, 14, and 15 ... had an abortion each time ... then finally decided to keep her ... the fifth pregnancy.

I guess its stories like that that make me somewhat sick about abortion ... the sometimes cavalier attitude towards life that it represents.

Before the certain flaming begins ... and of course, its equally problematic to have the child bear a child. There's no easy solution.

[alittlelark]

36. uh, yeah.......

who was that 'young girl', and why did her mother tell her abour 4 previous abortions.........


I mean Jeepers Creepers.....

[cags]

5. Parents aren't perfect

Obviously this girl plus her sister did not feel like they could talk to thier mother. I'm afraid there are many parents that do not talk to thier children for whatever reason.

Thats why I support birth control for teens without a parents consent.
To help prevent this very thing

[MindPilot]

6. I have my doubts about this story...

the style is not really newspaper, but trying to be. And the phrase "Planned Parenthood abortion mill" really fires my bs detector

[mopinko]

9. it is bs

look at the rest of the stories.

[Maria Celeste]

26. It does smell a bit, but I have seen ones like it

I substitute taught for a while and I saw a lot of young girls with their heads and priorities messed up. Any number of them could have been the pregnant teen in this story. However, I too think the story seems a bit too pat.

Going along with it though, the real stinker is the boy's mother. Somehow I doubt she was just protecting the young girl's rights. More like she was making sure that her son did not incur long term obligations. Seen that attitude too.

Clearly there are all sort of civil possibilities against the school, boy friends mom, and the clinic. Statutory rape may be on the table, depending what the law is in CA these days. Then again, I doubt the courts will do any real good here. The people involved need more that a judge or social services could do.

I want to remember there was a case a while back where a school staffer took a child across state lines for an abortion and there was hell to pay. If anybody remembers it or has a citation I would appreciate it.

As a parent I would want my daughters to talk to me about getting pregnant at that age. I hope we could deal with the situation rationally. Having been a single parent I know how hard it is. Having had children, supporting an abortion is troublesome.

Nothing but bad choices when a girl is pregnant at 13.

[SemperEadem]

28. same here

when I read that line, I was like "I'm sure that's not how they're listed in the yellow pages".

[AlCzervik]

7. You need to check the other articles on this site

before you take this story on face value or in sdnews speak "Gospel"

[FellowAmerican]

10. This is truly tragic!

A thirteen year old, very scared girl does not understand the consequence of her actions. Keeping information 'confidential' and hidden from mother is, IMO, very damaging. This boyfriends mother apparently had more influence over this poor child's decision then her own mother! And the article says nothing about any other options were given to the girl, or if she received any kind of counseling or guidance. This is tragic which ever decision was made - if the girl had the baby, it would be a life changing experience, but so is living with the abortion.

I'm sorry, but a parent has the right to know and determine the proper and appropriate medical care of a minor child - no matter what the circumstance.

[seabeyond]

11. being a parent i am disgusted with some of the answers

ok most of the answers on this thread.

this is a challenging issue for me at the very least. and certainly not so easy for me to dismiss the mothers right, yes friggin right to know about any medical precedure of her 13 year old child. i know why they allow a child to do this without a parent consent. for example when a father has raped daughter, or many other reasons, but..............

even though i understand the reasons, as a parent this doesnt sit right with me at all. i cannot so cavalierly dismiss the mothers responsibility of being informed with what is happening with her daughter

this law gives me the creeps

goes with so many things that are happening today, taking away the parents right and responsibility. allowing schools, government and other places to have authority over the child instead of the parent

[Nite Owl]

13. The fact that the young girl did

this without telling her mother is indicative of what she expected to happen. A thirteen year old has no business having a baby. The mother wants to dictate her life now but she let her have a boyfriend at 13 yrs old? The mother abdicated her responsibility at that point.

[Liberty2001]

18. Hmmm

A parent wants to dictate the CHILDS life ... how surprising.

How dare a parent tell a child what to do.:eyes:

[SemperEadem]

30. what I think they meant was

she waited until this abortion happened to decide to act like a parent, when in the first place, the child should not have had a boyfriend to begin with. She and the boy are too young to be intimately involved with one another. It's a little late now for the mother to be howling and be credible in the same vein... Where was her supervision with her own child? Clearly, the girl didn't feel that she could confide in her mother or the mother didn't want to discuss the facts of life with her child.

I think the parents of the girl abdicated their responsibility around the time they greenlighted her relationship with the boy.

[Rowdyboy]

14. This is from a right-wing Catholic site; its not news, its propaganda...

Look at the freaking source!

I'm sure the Catholic church has many wonderful news-sites. Sadly, this is not one of them.

[Undercover Owl]

15. it could be the other way around....

Some mothers would force their 13 year old daughters to get abortions. I think I would, if it were my daughter!

Is this what you want? (rhetorical question)

[Undercover Owl]

17. I meant

I meant, if "parental rights" meant forcing a girl to have an abortion, would you still feel the same about "parental rights"?

[fortyfeetunder]

19. PP was the problem...

Going to Planned Parenthood was not the problem; the problem was Poor Parenting.

[Liberty2001]

21. Sometimes ...

... it doesn't matter how good a parent you are ... sometimes, its just kids gone wild.

My parents own a roller skating rink, and I've seen and met literally thousands of kids ... and I've seen how the kids change when the parents drop them off ... mommy and daddy's little angels at home can be hellions when the parents aren't watching.

[Doremus]

20. That story is BOGUS

NO school will:

1. Sign out a student to a non-parent or anyone who isn't a legal guardian;

2. Call to tell the parent AFTER THE FACT that a person with no legal authority has just taken the child for medical treatment.

This story is as bogus as monkeyboy's presidency.

A freetard's work of fiction.

[two gun sid]

24. Exactly

No professional reporter calls Planned Parenthood "abortion mill". No doctor operates on underage children with no parental consent. Complete and utter bullshit.

[knitter4democracy]

22. This isn't bullshit--happens all the time

When I was teaching high school, the teacher across the hall from me who taught sophomores had a student finally tell her that the reason she'd been missing school and not doing well lately was that her mother forced her to get an abortion. She was 14, and her mother didn't want her to have the baby, so she got some cash and took her to a known clinic. From the girl's description, she was put through hell. They never asked her without her mother there if she really wanted it (her mother had threatened to kick her out onto the streets or make her live with her father, whom she didn't know, if she didn't go through with it), and her mother refused to okay the use of pain meds. It took four adults to hold her down for the procedure.

The teacher came to me (as a slightly more experienced teacher) to aske me what to do. I told her to report it--to force someone to undergo a medical procedure against her will should be abuse, just as not letting her get it is too. You know what? Nothing happened. Not a freakin' thing. That poor girl was horribly traumatized (not to mention that her mother refused to let her take the birth control pills, not understanding that they were to balance her hormones, so she hadn't had a period for a month), and she'll never forget any of that.

It's easy to shake your head at "poor parenting," but what would you do in that situation? If you force her, you're wrong, and if you don't let her, you're wrong. With the hours parents need to work these days, no one's watching these kids 24/7--shoot, I had kids tell me that they saw me more in a week than their parents--many kids. And we wonder what's wrong . . .

[Ilsa]

23. If that girl thought the abortion was "pure hell" she apparently hadn't

thought about the hell she'd be going through in labor and delivery.

That's part of the problem, isn't it? The romanticization of pregnancy and childbirth by teenagers? They don't realize they are more prone to having complications of delivery, and they don't have a clue about what being a parent will take from their lives.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Uhh, would any medical professional agree to perform any kind of a

traumatic medical procedure without pain relief (e.g. a D&C) unless the person who was actually undergoing the procedure gave consent?

I cannot imagine a doctor (unless a real sleazebag) giving into a parent who said, "I want you to force a painful procedure on my daughter, but you must not give her any pain relief."

[SemperEadem]

31. TLC used to air a show regarding pregnancy and delivery

it wasn't that cotton-candy, life is fluffy, "she's having my baby.. what a wonderful way of showing how much you love me" song by Paul Anka-type of show during the daytime, it was a prime time show...

They had this 14 yr old girl girl having the baby.. her mother was from one of the Caribbean Islands. She was quite mad that her daughter was even pregnant and she was insisting to the doctor that her daughter was not to have any kind of pain relief for her delivery. She was dead set against her going through it without pain.

The daughter did ask the doctor for the epidural a couple of times, but the mother kept saying "no... you do this without the drugs". The doctor consulted with someone up the chain of command because she was torn about what to do.

Finally, after conferring with the chain of command, the doctor ordered the mother out of the room and gave the patient the epidural because the pit-drip was making her contractions way harder than she could handle and she wasn't keeping on top of them. Needless to say, the mother was reeeeeeaaaaalllllyy salty about it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. The dead giveaway sign of propaganda:

"the Planned Parenthood abortion mill."

[Undercover Owl]

32. I agree it's complete BS propaganda

Besides, although Planned Parenthood may be a contraceptive mill, (an an information mill, and an inexpensive pap-smear mill...) They are absolutely NOT an "abortion mill"!

Can anyone name a single Planned Parenthood that provides abortions..? If you can, that's news to me.

[Cats Against Frist]

33. I'm thinking that this entire thread is part of an attack

There are several low-numbered posters here, tossing their moral indignation around.

Anyone who thinks there is any simple answer to this is crazy. The best I can patch together is that 1. Society promotes sex for teens through advertising and marketing. 2. Republicans want to stop birth control information and limit these 13-year-old girls from getting protection. 3. Parents, technically, SHOULD have a relationship with their child where the child could trust them, and the parent should be smart enough to know that the decision is STILL the childs, no matter how young. Truthfully, no one should be able to decide, for anyone that they should be made or not made to have a child, and 4. The propaganda in the article is sickening.

[Undercover Owl]

35. sorry about us insouciant newbies!

We low-numbered posters seem to be divided on this issue, BTW. Not sure what you were implying...

[Susang]

34. Chicago

http://www.ppca.org/

It's listed in their services. The one I used to go to was often threatened with bombing by domestic terrorists who don't seem to like women very much. They lost their lease because of it and had to move to another building.

[Scout]

37. "Planned Parenthood surgical abortion mill"

that wording tells me pretty much all I need to know about the source of the article...


the 13 year old probably knew that mom would try to force her to continue the pregnancy and squeeze out a child she didn't want to have ... that is why she didn't tell her

[Skinner]

38. This person is no longer with us.

I'm locking.