How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

PS: Speaking of "looking fanatical and unrealistic", how realistic is it to compare ear piercing laws to abortion notification laws? I don't think ears are pierced by medical doctors (usually). I also don't think getting one's ears pierced carries with it the same emotional charge that may cause a pregnant person to want to keep their abortion private. In any event, where did you hear that I have sponsored or supported a state ear piercing notification law? I have not, so there is no hypocrisy in my views.

This means war!
 

Honest question, no underlying inuendos:

Is Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution obsolete? Why doesn't Congress declare war anymore?

I always sort of wonder if a little more precision should be made when I hear government officials say "we're at war..." etc. without there ever having been al declaration of war from Congress.

ETA: I understand the War Powers Act and relevant court rulings, but I'm still not sure why Congress isn't in the war declaring business anymore. It also bothers me that a specific, relatively unambiguous clause in the Constitution is so readily ignored.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

17? Maybe. The average age I saw in chambers was 13. I would have rather not told my parents about joints back in those days, too - it would adversely affect my relationship with them! But, still, I was a kid, and they were my parents.

We have a Constitutional right to free speech, too, but no one ever questioned my parents' right to forbid me from publishing anti-Catholic tracts.

So, who am I to second-guess my kid? Um, one of her parents. I think that we just profoundly disagree on the role of parents in a kid's life.

This means war!
 

Speed, efficiency, and the willingness of Congress to grab a deal that allows them to NOT get criticized for allowing war. (i.e., the WPA.) Without the WPA, Congress would have had to vote on the Iraq invasion. Can you imagine the scrambling they'd do to avoid that vote?

Heck, we do unconstitutional delegations of power all the time. (Look at federal regulatory agencies acting administratively.) That's all the WPA (arguably) was.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Tats and ear rings she can get later, once she is 18, if you refuse now. That abortion thing is time sensitive. And if a parent refuses medical treatment (see Christian Scientists) for their kids, the State will step in.

I mean I see your point, and for any decent parent the devastating thing wouldn't be the pregnancy news, the devastating thing would be to learn she didn't think she could tell you. But abortion is different then the examples you bring up- if for no other reason that it is so emotionally charged an issue (which was one of your original points).

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

I doubt we profoundly disagree on the role of parents in a kid's life. Or at least how the relationship *should* be. I think we are just disagreeing on the role of parents on this one issue. From what I can see, abortion is one of those things that gets people crazy and can lead someone to think and even act in ways that are vastly off track to their usual responses. I am concerned at the ability of many parents to be helpful at all to their kid in a crisis like this. Not many would be like Carrie's Mom who freaks out completely when Carrie starts her period (sin! sin!) but how many would act just a little like that if the daughter had sex and got preggers?

All I'm saying is that from what I have seen in terms of how people handle the abortion issue generally AND how some parents have handled the issue when actually faced with it (i.e., one Mom pressuring the daughter to have the kid because the MOM who was not happy she was infertile wanted to raise the baby), I am deeply concerned that requiring parental notification would do more harm than good IF (a big IF) the child really really doesn't want the parent to know. I'd hope most parents aren't like Mother Carrie but I doubt most are the Diane Wiest type either who will react with a calm, mother earth rationale.

Do I want my 13 year old bleeding from a D&C in her bed with me sleeping and having no idea what is going on? Absolutely not. And I will do whatever it takes to create the same "safety net" my parents did with me -- no matter how egregious, illegal or against my parent's rules something we did was, if we approached my parents with it we entered a safety zone where we were guaranteed that we wouldn't be penalized for raising the issue. I will even flesh out my kid's views on abortion along the way.

One more thing. I think many parents (especially Moms maybe?) who were aware of their daughter being pregnant/planning an abortion would tell a close friend or sibling (the parent's sibling that is) what was going on. Just to have someone THEY could talk with about it. That could end up with the friend's kids (possibly the preggo's classmates) and/or cousins knowing, and the whole privacy thing gets blown to pieces. Now everyone knows about the abortion. A pregnant girl wants to be able to control who knows about it.

PS: And, yes, the age issue is key. Age 13 seems like you've just gotten them potty trained for chrissakes, while Age 17 on certain girls can be pretty old.

PSS: I cannot BELIEVE you called me Hillary.

You mean its not about his sex life, its about "rule of law?"

I did hear the local Fox affiliate report it, more than once, as "$80 million." They even had a graphic to that effect.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

The odd thing is that that is not the position of either party.

And, for the record, parental notification is totally preposterous.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Because her only other option is to go to court. Hell, that scares the crap out of me and I am a licensed lawyer. Imagine some poor girl who is already freaked out about how the rest of her life is ruined.

That said, I knew a girl in high school who went to court for exactly that reason. She is one of the strongest and toughest women I have ever known. But it is ridiculous to expect all girls in her position to be as strong.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

You think there is an abortion clinic anywhere in the country that doesn't, as a matter of hospital policy, already do this? Are they somehow immune to the litigiousness invading the rest of our society?

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Shooting the abortionist is thoughtful and sensitive??

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Okay, so I am totally getting out of control here. Sorry.

But isn't this an implied admission that the reason you want parental notification is because you want the parents to have a chance to talk her out of an abortion? And isn't that where all of this started - the observation that parental notification was nothing more than an attempt to reduce abortions by giveing parents a chance to talk girls out of it?

This means war!
 

I think it would have been hard for the framers to have anticipated the many ways in which military force can be deployed short of but up the sort of full-scale war between nations that they envisioned. The world has changed in ways that have left the framers' conceptions behind.

I am just testing this idea out here and refuse to be bound by it in the future.

And another thing that pisses me off
 

http://rds.yahoo.com/S=53720272/K=ha...7gonzales.html

I'm Hispanic in America, and I'm watching a Republican try to pull the race card out. Don't patronize me.

This means war!
 

In Chess terms, what Ty is doing here is called a sacrifice.