For those who support parental notification

[question everything]

from today's Dear Abby

FRIEND'S ADVICE TO PREGNANT TEEN TAKES A TRAGIC TURN

DEAR ABBY:

(snip)

A few months ago, Mary told me about a terrible situation concerning one of her classmates. "Jill" had just learned that she was pregnant and was frantic. She told Mary that she couldn't tell her parents because she was afraid of a violent reaction.

Mary was so worried about Jill that she came to me for help. After hearing the story, I encouraged my daughter to tell Jill to talk to her parents. I never imagined what would happen next.

I knew from things Mary had said that Jill's parents were hard on her, but I didn't know the extent of her problems at home. When Jill took my advice and told her parents she was pregnant, her father beat her so badly she ended up in the hospital and lost the baby.

Abby, you can't imagine how terrible I feel about this. Jill will never be the same, and I feel I am to blame. I wish I had known how to protect her from a dangerous and violent situation at home.

(snip)

SHOCKED AND SADDENED IN SHERMAN OAKS, CALIF.

http://www.uexpress.com/dearabby/

[Clark2008]

1. Dear Lord

No words...

[Warpy]

2. All parents want to be told, and most will be

However, this story proves something I've said for a long time, that it's the pregnant DAUGHTER who knows whether or not it's SAFE.

Parental notification laws will kill, just like the illegal abortions will.

[question everything]

4. And.. that you cannot legislate parental communication

California has it, again, as a ballot measure after it was defeated last year.

And I like a comment on DU - do not recall by whom - that such a legislation is intervening in parent-child relations by forcing the daughter to notify even if some parents would rather not know.

Also, as Ann Quindlen recently wrote of a mother who wants to force her teen daughter to have an abortion saying that, after all, she has the last word on this..

[SheilaT]

8. Most, although apparently not all,

abortion clinics will NOT do an abortion if the pregnant woman does not want one. I've read recently of parents being quite astonished when the clinics refuse abortions, thinking they can force the daughter to have one against her will.

[PaDem]

3. I knew a girl in school that had this exact same experience........

any girl who has been victimized by physically abusive parents is all but assured to get a severe physical beating when they disclose that they are pregnant.

[TygrBright]

5. Well, that's one way to abort a fetus...

This must be the "pro-life" version of abortion, hmmmm?

angrily,
Bright

[SheilaT]

6. This is a little too neat.

It fits too well our fears about parental notification. I'm not saying it's made up. But if it's true, one hopes that her father is now in prison for beating his daughter.

[ThomCat]

7. Unfortunately, I doubt it.

domestic abuse so rarely results in convictions. It's far more likely that he was given a warning.

[SheilaT]

9. I was under the impression that

emergency rooms and the like were supposed to intervene in these kinds of situations. I'm appalled to think that they wouldn't, that the cops wouldn't get involved and so on.

Of course, it does depend on the abused person being willing to press charges, and kids this age would rarely have sufficient understanding of their rights here.

But I still think the story in the original post, the supposed letter, is simply too neat, too good to be true.

[SharonAnn]

10. It's not the only time it's happened. Neighbors lost a daughter because

she got an illegal abortion. She didn't want to tell her parents.

They started speakingout against parental notification laws. They feel that if their daughter had been able to get a legal (safe) abortion, she'd be alive today. Daughter's name was Becky.