Hi All,
I hope I won't get in trouble for interrupting the scintilating Laz, Sandman, Nash, "you are, no you are" debate. If so, please forgive me, and feel free to ignore the following.
In a sane world, the idea that the state could take your minor daughter - as young as say 12 or 13 - away for an invasive surgery without informing you wouldn't even be debatable. In most school systems, parental consent is required before your daughter can even receive an aspirin for a headache, or use the asthma inhaler prescribed to her with your consent by the family doctor. And yet we are expected to live with and be content that in most states your daughter can opt for and then go through a procedure that can and does sometimes lead to the death of the mother, infection, infertility, cervical incompetence, and which will have profound spiritual and psychological consequences. And this at a time when states concur that she has not reached a sufficient level of maturity to make most major life decisions or even take care of herself.
Additionally, most parents search long and hard to find the best medical care that they can afford for their children, and yet in this case, your daughter can be operated on by a doctor you wouldn't trust the family dog with, without your even being consulted as to where you would prefer she be treated.
Gentlemen, let us remove the issue of abortion from the discussion for a moment, and insert any other kind of invasive surgery. Would you be content for a moment with the idea that your 14 year old daughter could inform a school counselor that she had decided to have her tonsils removed, and they facilitate the procedure from start to finish without your ever being informed?
Aside from that, how would you react, if as a mother in Virginia shared with me several years ago, you were contacted one afternoon by a hospital to let you know that your daughter was not at cheerleading practice, she was in the ICU ward of a hospital because her uterus had been perforated by a doctor you'd never even met during a procedure you knew nothing of, and that she'd just undergone an emergency hysterectomy and was currently suffering from acute peritonitis and barely clinging to life? Would you really hang up the phone with a warm feeling thinking. "Wow! I'm so glad that the people from NOW and PAW are doing such an excellent job of protecting my minor daughter's "right to choose abortion" free from even the potential for interference from her stupid and extraneous parents."
- SEAGOON
