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.

This means war!
 

may i use this in my sig line?

This means war!
 

I would be honored. Hank, would this make Burger my pawn?

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

The fact that it is an emotionally charged issue is central to my point (as I think you understand.) There are two components here. The first is, you're talking about a serious medical procedure. Parents need to be involved in that. The second lies in the differing attitudes about abortion. Yeah, any pregnant kid who walks into a PP clinic is going to be told about the option in fairly neutral terms, and walked through the process (including, for those worried about it, the whole bypass system.) But, what if the parents think abortion is murder? Do you totally disclaim the right of a parent to pass on those kinds of concepts to their kids? I understand that RvW is in place right now, but our society places the parent into the role of deciding almost all major issues in a kid's life. Yeah, if I let my kid wither from leukemia because "gawd'll sort it out", the state does step in - to save my kid's life when I won't. But this isn't a life-or-death situation we speak of here - well, at least not for the pregnant one.

This means war!
 

Apostle.

Subject lines do count
 

I love Slate's headline regarding Hilary's new take on appeasing the anti-abortion crowd:

"She Favors Abstinence; Are You Surprised?"

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

It's basically a D&C and takes only a few minutes. Like anything, things can go wrong but I think "serious medical procedure" makes it sound like more than it is. In any event, how would you want a parent to "be involved" in it? Why would they "need" to be involved in the medical aspect of it? What medical need is there? Also, teens can get birth control pills without parental consent and the side effects of bc pills are issues as well. Still, no parental consent is required.


You are right. And if a parent is totally pro-life I see nothing wrong at all with trying to instill these values on a child. The child should already be aware, however, of their parents' views. So these concepts have already been "passed on" to the child.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Same reason I would want to be involved in an appendectomy. Same reason I would want to be involved in therapy. Same reason I would want to be involved in female circumcision. I don't necessarily claim to bring medical expertise to the table. But, there are other issues involved as well.

I want to live in your perfect world.

Another installment
 

in the occassional series entitled "If You Took All the Fools Out of the Legislature, It Wouldn't Be a Representative Body Anymore."

State Senator Proposes Boxing Gloves for Chickens

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

I think I'm done arguing with someone who equates abortions with the act of pinning a 10 year old girl down and lopping off her clitoris so that she won't be horny when she's older.

As for your perfect world comment -- You complained that a parent should be allowed the opportunity to convey their pro-life views. I said the parent will have already conveyed it (even though the child may not agree with it).

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Well, now, that's just weak. I didn't equate. I named appendectomy and therapy too - to illustrate that I am going to be involved in all of my kids' medical/psycho/emotional events, huge or big or just significant. I suppose, though, that I'll let them build their own straw men without my supervision. That seems to be an easy skill to acquire.

But it does strike me as dumb on my part to continue, having made a promise to myself some time ago to NOT do the abortion argument thing. There's just so little common ground, our logic works like ships passing in the night.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Did anyone pass a law requiring you to notify your parents of wha you planned to publish? You seem to be conflating concepts here.

Another installment
 

Hank, can you start another pool for the over/under on how long before this is mentioned on The Daily Show?

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

It seems to me that middle ground is sort of accomplished through a notification discussion than a "make abortion illegal" discussion. If abortion is going to happen, I think that younger kids, in their pre-teens especially, probably need to have more parental invovlment than older kids. I have more problems with blocks being thrown up for the 17 and 18 year olds that (presumably) have had more education on things sex-related, and have a better grasp on what exactly it is that they're doing. There are some 9 to 11 year olds that have no idea how they got pregnant, much less are able to make choices about what to do about it. Their parents should at least know.

The governor of Texas announced today that he wants to change the notification to consent. I haven't seen the particulars.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

I think you miss the point. We have a right to freedom from unreasonable search, too, but this freedom is tempered when applied to children - see the school locker cases. My point was, we may hold that there is a Const. right to have an abortion, but that right is (or should be, IMHO) tempered for children. What is held as a right for adults in our society may not always be appropriate for free exercise by the will of children.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

I thought that was possible when I first replied, but I'm not sure that there aren't too many conflicting underlying assumptions to make that leap. In any event, (aside from my reply to Sidd above), I'm going to move on to discussions about {fill in non-abortion topic of choice}. This topic, and even the corrollary topics, generate too much ire.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

When do we announce war against Iran?

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Just Iran? I thought we'd get more bang than that for $80 fucking billion dollars. Or is the rest in a secret fund somewhere?

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

We're doing covert ops now through the Pentagon, so who knows where we are.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

They're setting up a SERP for the Bush administration.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

didn't you see Farenheit 911? This is all about building an oil pipeline across Afghanistan. We'll get there.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

I found this whole "news" item pretty amusing. We've been doing covert ops through the Pentagon for decades. The CIA is institutionally incapable of producing tactically useful HUMINT in a timely fashion for battlefield use. Rummy's biggest change to the existing system was to give the CIA a 72 hour window to object instead of approval rights, and arranging for pentagon and CIA operatives to be made aware of the others' respective locations & activities. To me that sounds like a good idea.

Come to think of it, I've been laughing my ass off at the "news" rather a lot recently. US SF are doing recon in Iran - really?!? Ya think?!? Amazing!! Next they'll tell us that we are making covert incursions into Pakistan!

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Well, I, for one, was taken aback. (Lou Reed Live line, I think.) Next, Hersch'll try and tell us that we've tapped phones somewhere. Heads will roll, I swear.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

That was just the down payment. Read the damn contract, why dont'cha.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

I understand that point, thanks, but that didn't seem to be the point you were making. A school's right to search lockers is a better analogy -- i.e., one involving government action -- then the analogy you made before, to non-state action, of a parent's ability to prevent a child from publishing certain speech. (Hell, my wife has the ability to prevent me from certain speech too, First Amendment notwithstanding.)

I haven't argued, and don't argue, the notification/consent issue on constitutional grounds. It's not a sound argument for the very reason you raise. My argument is based on the cost/benefits analysis and on what I believe are the limits of what government can and should do. It surprises me that small government types believe that government should be in the business of trying to maintain or create family bonds and lines of communication when those bonds and lines are already apparently broken, or non-existent.

But, as you said, 'nuff said on this subject.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Gotcha. Plus I gotta say Bush looks pretty savvy paying for his wars in U.S. dollars. Now I understand the whole "ruin the economy" strategy he's been pushing the last four years.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

It's times like this that I wish we could pull up the discussions on the old board (in between Infirm and here) from just before the war started -- when some of us were asking whether it was worth spending a few hundred billion when the evidence of WMD was somewhat shaky, and others were claiming that the abundant oil wealth of Iraq would cover the cost of the invasion.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

How are we going to build a pipeline across Afghanistan when we can't even get the fucking F train to run from Brooklyn to Manhattan when it snows? Maybe if we flew some Taliban over to take potshots as it goes by there'd be a little money forthcoming for maintenance and repair.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

As if!!

Interesting take on abortion vs. having the kid in Egypt (not having to do with minors):

Interesting that NOT getting the abortion (and virginity-restoring operation) is loose.

Anyway, this was sent to me by a friend who was more interested in the "secret marriage" aspect b/c of her dissertation topic about the same kind of thing in medieval Italy. Uh, maybe it was a later period. I'm not so scholarly. Anyway. From NYT sometime this week.

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Next best thing:

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/images/war.093.gif

Link

How Will This Play and What is Going on Here?
 

Whether it is ire or something else the topic sure seems to get in the way of logic. Sorry, Bilmore, but you made a big point to say parental notification should be required so a parent gets to give the kid "information" and the parent's views, yet you didn't bother responding when Ty and myself said, "What if all the information was given before the crisis happened?". If you feel a certain way for no specific reason and you're working from a gut level feeling instead, then why not just say so, rather than trot out these "informational" reasons? Although I believe abortion should be legal, I also think an embryo is "life" and I would not, like others, pretend to be working from anything other than a gut feeling or personal value and belief system.