ODE Watch: Abortions and Sex Shows Edition
The Ol’ Dirty takes on the parental notification issue in an editorial yesterday. Some of you may remember a similar editorial from about two months ago addressing the same subject.
I’ve always tried to avoid writing directly about abortion law since it is unquestionably the least productive and most polarizing of subjects to write about. Both sides are dominated and largely represented by extremists, much to the detriment of civil debate and political progress.
But with that said, I’ve always found the pro-choice movement majority’s inconsistent treatment of the implied right to privacy to be one of the more hypocritical (drink!) positions taken by either side. To use the Emerald as an example, their Editorial Board supports the right of a 15 year old girl to have an abortion without the knowledge of her parents. But one year ago they were adament in opposing individual rights in Oregon as they applied to adults. According to their logic, parental notification laws, which are overwhelmingly supported by a majority of Americans, should be unconstitutional under the implied right to privacy. Meanwhile sex shows, which are not widely supported, should not be protected by similar rights. As I pointed out then, this is an inconsistent position to take. It essentially reduces the implied right to privacy to nothing more than an implied right to have an abortion or take contraception. Yet another reason why rights should be written into the Constitution, not divined from the bench.
It would be interesting to see if, with its new composition, the Emerald’s Editorial Board has altered its view on the legality of sex shows.
From Child Maltreatment 2004:
“Based on a victim rate of 11.9 per 1,000 children, an estimated 872,000 children were found to be victims [of abuse]. …17.5 percent were physically abused … Nearly 84 percent (83.4%) of victims were abused by a parent acting alone or with another person.”
Just for reference, that’s roughly 127,268 children physically abused by at least one of their parents.
Now, imagine telling one of those parents something they won’t like. (Such as, for example, “I’m getting an abortion” / “I’ve been having sex.”)
“Is abortion not a
Andrew,
You say this: “The revenue relation for 501(c)3s does not go more services..” but then say this, “as all money brought into a 501(c)3 must be spent on providing services to the community.”
Is abortion not a “service to the community?” If their goal is to provide more services, they must have more money to do so. Gee, even non-profits can have a revenue agenda.
Again, this ballot measure is about notification, not consent.
Andrew: “Requiring parental notification makes it so that a portion of girls have no other option than to turn to unlicensed/untrained
“It seems that you have been fortune enough not to deal with government funding politics. There is a clear incentive for planned parenthood to provide abortions.”
I’m going to avoid delving too deeply into my background credentials as I believe that will only result in this debate degrading into personal attacks. But I did work for several years as part of a 501(c)3.
The revenue relation for 501(c)3s does not go more services => more revenue as that is the model of a for profit business. (And it is illegal for a 501(c)3 to turn a profit) rather the model goes more funding => more services, as all money brought into a 501(c)3 must be spent on providing services to the community. (And yes, this does include paying for staffing, though a majority of most 501(c)3 staff members are so on a volunteer basis.)
“Why would we want girls to undergo this tramatic procedure without the aid and support of her parents? I think everyone can agree to support notification.”
You’re right, the aid and support of parents would be a great thing. But in a significant number of cases, that’s won’t be the outcome. And of those cases it’s not, a portion of them will have quite the opposite effect. (IE: being disowned and kicked out.)
It would be great if everyone had loving supporting families, but that simply is not the case.
Tseren
“People have been using many other examples, but let
I’m gonna surrender to the JC home-court advantage on the abortion issue.
As much as I felt like discussing it…
Hey, and I though planned parenthood had some vast conspiracy to force women into having more abortions so they can get more funding. All the sudden no one is getting forced into this?
I have a hard time keeping up with you, Andy. I like your conspiracy theories better: at least they read coherently.
Andy, riddle me this: what good does it do to educate girls about having protected sex after they get knocked up?
I can see it now: parents sitting down with their daughter giving her the talk, showing her how to put a condom on properly while she is months pregnant.
Good show!
My whole point is that parents need to talk to their children before they become sexually active, not only so that avenue of communication is open if anything does happen, but also as a way to prevent unplanned pregnancies from happening. Let’s just put it this way: when I was attending Junction City High School, about 6 girls had already had children by the time they got to classes where we discussed safe sex. Too little too late.
“What if her father was a senator, and for the sake of his image he forced her to have an abortion that she didn
Hey, they have to find out some way! I bet you could get a group discount so whole classes could go at the same time … that way they wouldn’t get uncomfortable or anything …
Here here Blaser!
Onward, to the sex shows, to educate the children!
I don’t know … I for one like the ancienct Greeks 🙂
Look, you are probably right in that there is not a solid enough argument to stop notification from happening. But all I’m saying is that this nofitication in many cases would probably amount to other people making the final decision other than the person who has to carry the baby. In a perfect world, women would get knocked up when they are good and ready, and they would want the child, care for the child, and would give it a good home.
But that is not our world. Abortion is a horrible thing, and I do think that many people abuse this procedure. But instead of arguing who should be able to get it and what channels they should have to go through, we should instead be arguing about teaching these kids how to protect themselves from this situation in the first place, so they do not have to be confronted by it. If we can arm our teenagers with education and have enough respect to talk to them like adults on this topic, we could do much more to curb abortions of girls 15-17 than by dictating parent involvement on this issue to them. Believe me, when teens know how to use condoms, they would choose them any day of the week over an unwanted pregnancy, but the problem is that many don’t know.
It may be easy for us to scoff at that remark, but many kids these days are told that condoms don’t cut it, and are given misleading stats as to lead them to abstinence, aka God’s way. Many of these same parents who want parental notification are the same parents that teach their children that sex is only for married couples, man and woman, and that abstinence is the only protection from disease. As we all know, marriage is a crumbling institution, sex isn’t just between man and woman, and there are
Blaser: “Even if there were large nembers of girls sexually active, let alone getting pregnant at such a young age (which at that age is almost physically impossible), she probably wouldn
And Andy, I’m suprised. Dragging 10 year olds into this debate? 🙂
Let’s stick to reality. Even if there were large nembers of girls sexually active, let alone getting pregnant at such a young age (which at that age is almost physically impossible), she probably wouldn’t even know she was pregnant, let alone know what an abortion was. I know it sounds good to argue about if these theoretical 10 year olds are adults are not, but it’s just not a sound argument.
Andy, one could say that bringing ten year olds into an argument about sex is just about as fanatical as it gets!
A few quibbles, Andy: “Sure, but that says nothing about their revenue motives. The more services they provide, the greater their
“Even if the girl really wanted the operation, without her parents consent, she is unable to get it. I don
Andrew,
“The main basis for this is that the school does not know for certain any reactions that the student might have to the medication, and thus would be putting the student at a potential risk.”
Uhm, don’t you think an abortion puts the child at risk? What about the reactions a child will have to such a tramatic medical procedure? If you think asprin has a potential risk, then you must agree that abortions have a substantial risk – and at the minimum parents should be *notified*.
“Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, with a policy of providing services irrespective of income.”
Sure, but that says nothing about their revenue motives. The more services they provide, the greater their “need” for a larger budget. It seems that you have been fortune enough not to deal with government funding politics. There is a clear incentive for planned parenthood to provide abortions.
“The problem is Andy that many parents are not willing to accept that liability…”
Well it doesn’t matter if they are willing or not: the government will hold you liabile. If you don’t control your kid, you are liable for the actions it commits. Again, it doesn’t matter what we feel concerning the proper measure of adulthood. In our society today children are children until they are 18, baring extenuating circumstances of emancipation. For some reason, only this non-life threatening medical procedure is exempt from the knowledge of parents and their children. This government intervention protecting abortion providers must be ended, and it will be in a few weeks time.
“Pro-choice is pro-choice: if you believe that a woman has the right to choose, then she has the right to do so at any age”
So therefore there is no age of consent? If a “woman” of age ten has sex with a 14 year old, there is no problem because she’s suddenly an adult now? Why are the pro-choicers so fanatical in their defense of abortion that all laws even concerning it are opposed – no matter their merit?
I’m the most radical firearms proponent, but I know it’s right for those who commit violent crimes, especially with firearms, should be disenfranchised of that right. The crime here is that these providers might be engaging in some pretty incredible child abuse by hiding the procedure from the parents.
No, give parents the benefit of the doubt that they know what is right for their child – not the state, not the church, not abortion providers.
“Pro-choice is pro-choice: if you believe that a woman has the right to choose, then she has the right to do so at any age with the help and consultation of her doctor, and possibly religous leader.”
I’m sorry, but this simply isn’t true. You’re arguing that children are (or rather should be) equivalent to adults before the law. This is a way more controversial assertion than you seem to realize. (And statements like this, by the way, don’t do the pro-choice movement any favors at all.)
“It is not up to the state to legislate forced communication between parent and child, especially in this situation.”
It’s not communication between the parent and the child; it’s communication between a medical professional and the child’s legal guardian. Again, I am somewhat surprised that you don’t see the ethical issue here.
On balance, I’m opposed to parental consent laws, as I think the rights of the (potential) mother outweigh the rights of the parents in that case. However, this is not the same thing as arguing that the parents don’t have any rights at all.
Actually, let me say this more succinctly. Who would you prefer to be in charge of raising your child: You and your spouse (be it straight or gay) or the state?
“When a 15 year old gets pregnant, she is no longer a teenager
“Kids under 18 aren
Also, I would like to apologize for accidently posting the second comment before it was completed.
A few other points to other comments:
“A high-schooler can
A few other points to other comments:
“A high-schooler can
I agree that the emeralds stance is inconsistent.
I disagree that their stance on strip club law is one of the “left” as it seems to put a lot of weight on the importance of morality, which is typically considered a right wing value. (This is not to claim, by inference, that the left is anti-moral, but rather that their arguments do not typically call morality as a form of support.)
What both the Commentator (and those discussing it in the comments here) and the ODE fail to recognize is that both are, at their root, safety issues.
The demand for these things (confidential abortions for minors, and lap dances) does not go away simply because they are illegal. Admittedly, there are patrons who will not seek such services because of the risks involved. But for those who do, the dangers can be potentially deadly.
In her article “Criminalizing abortion will have disastrous consequences” by Leslie J. Reagan, Professor of History at the University of Illinois wrote, “In the years immediately before Roe v. Wade, hospitals around the country had separate septic abortion wards for women bleeding, injured and infected due to illegal abortions. Many of these patients had tried to abort by themselves.
Chicago’s Cook County Hospital housed almost 5,000 women per year in its septic abortion wards.”*
According to ” Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2002″ published by the Center for Disease Control “A total of 854,122 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC for 2002 from 49 reporting areas” of those 854,122 abortions, 127,793 or 16.8% were obtained by girls aged 15-19.
Faced with the potential of their parents finding out that they had an abortion, and by inference that they were having sex in the first place, many girls from more conservative families would have no other choice of recourse than to obtain an abortion illegal. If only 10 percent of girls who would get a legal, confidential, abortion were to take that course of action that would still put 12,779 at risk of serious resulting complications, such as hemorrhaging and infection from improper treatment.
Since you
Frankly, I was being as serious as I ever am.
(Although I agree that straight-up Libertarian policies certainly fall down when it come to children, as they also fall down when it comes to virtually anything else.)
Since you’re apparently shocked (and appalled too, I’m sure) that the Editorial Board’s opinions differ from those it published last year, consider that not one of the people on the board last year is still on it.
Timothy,
I too have struggled many nights worrying about the same issues you bring up with notification, but one indisputable fact remains: The parents of a person under the age of 18 years are the ones “legally” responsible for that person. With that in mind, I have no problem with parental notification. If you are going to make someone legally responsible for someone else, then that means that person needs all the information about that person and any right to privacy is the parents’ call to make. Now, if you wanted to advocate for people a younger age for people to no longer be under the legal obligation for someone else, fine, but that is a different issue.
My point is that there emphatically isn’t a clear delineation between childhood and adulthood. And that not recognizing that is a little bit foolish. Look, I can agree that there’s going to be some absurd and arbitrary legal cut off and that in that sort of framework having one age for all of the adult rights makes a certain degree of sense.
So, I suppose I could agree with parental notification laws to the extent that the notification occurs only after the procedure. Because if it ocurrs before the procedure, I fail to see a practical difference between notification and consent laws.
As an aside, I think there’s very little evidence that anybody lobbies kids who come into PP to get abortions, although that does have pretty sensational media value.
I do care if they advocate abortions for children of parents who atleast don’t even know they’re getting one. Ian’s right that there needs to be a clear line of adulthood, and it’s currently 18 to 21. Children aren’t parasites to a host – they are humans who were brought into this world by the choice of two people, and those people are should be bound to the consequences of that choice. It would be murder to not feed or give water to a child, and it is neglect to not care for your children under the age of 18.
Kids under 18 aren’t adults yet, and I have no problem with them doing adult activities, as long as thier parents agree to accept that liability.
This measure isn’t about a discussion of what the definition of a child is – it’s about removing the state intervention that protected abortion providers from liability when they preform a tramatic medical procedure without parental notification.
The basic problem we’re facing is that there is no clear delineation between adults and children. In my view, there should be a specific age where someone becomes a legal adult. 17 or 18 are probably good choices. Before that age they have limited rights, are legally bound to a guardian, etc.. After 17 or 18, they can choose to do what they want with their own body and mind. I really hate the idea of having 15 – 21 being a nebulous area where you can have some rights (like having an abortion without your parents knowing or getting) but not others (like being able to buy a glass of wine at a restaurant).
And yeah, if people agree that 15 year olds are children with a limited set of rights, then a parental notification law for kids that age makes sense to me. But I tend to not subscribe to “SLIPPERY SLOPE!” arguments like those contained in the ODE editorial.
I don’t particularly care if they advocate that people have abortions, and given that PP is funded mostly by donation and does A TON (yearly exams, sex education, contraception, &c) more than abortions, I’m not so certain their financials align with the number of procedures performed.
I also don’t think that teenagers are children. I think we’ve spent a lot of time and energy to infantalize a group of people who are going to pretty much do what they feel like anyway, and trying to apply the same logic that we’d apply to a toddler to people who’re in high school just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I also think it’s kind of a moot point, as the majority of kids are going to end up telling their parents anyway and the ones who don’t probably have a good reason. As I don’t really think it’s the state’s business to get between doctors and patients anyway, I’m not inclined to say they should do it in this case either.
I’m a little surprised at your opinion on this matter, given your anarcho-capitalist leanings.
I disagree Tim, on the basis of so many other aspects of life that children under 18 do not have the freedom to keep private from thier parents. It would be contradictory and negligent if the state prohibited parents not to know every aspect of their children’s lives they wanted to. Parents are held financially liable for thier children’s actions, as it should be, and this should be across the board.
Children should not be entitled to privacy when they have no liability.
Plus, where does the child receive the money to pay for these operations? Do doctors do it pro bono? What about Planned Parenthood? The parties who help fund abortions have a financial incentive to advocate for them if they can bill the goverment and/or advance thier political agenda. I believe it is these parties who have something to gain by increasing the number of abortions by teen girls who we should be protecting our children from. These groups have no financial incentive to involve parents or even notify them in making the girl’s decision.
To be more serious for a minute: Libertarian policies break down in the case of children. This is completely obvious in the case of actual children, but is a little trickier with teenagers.
The issue regarding abortion, setting aside the tedious usual debate for a minute, is that it is a medical procedure and that States have different privacy protections, if those are “more stringent” than HIPAA they can be enforced, and some states begin medical privacy at the age of 16. In those cases, it’s reasonable to assert, I think, that parental notification laws conflict with those States’ medical privacy laws. I’m sure somebody out there knows more than I do, and I could be mistaken, but that’s just my thought.
If I’m right, than the initial consultation regarding the procedure would be in confidence and disclosure to a third party would be in violation of the medical privacy laws, unless the statute is written to carve out a specific exemption. Which is why I say we institute carte blanche medical privacy for teenagers from 15 forward.
Wow. Parental consent for abortions is a tricky issue, and I can see arguments on both sides. Parental notification, on the other hand, is one of the handful of social issues that seems like an absolute no-brainer to me – morally, practically, and in every other way. I’m absolutely astonished that the ODE editorial board (or, you know, whoever) feels a doctor has no ethical obligation to inform the parents of a fifteen-year-old that their daughter is having an abortion. How this can not be considered the legitimate business of the parents – who are still the legal guardians of the kid, mind you – is utterly beyond me. And my reaction to this next argument goes beyond astonishment to actual disgust:
In other words: “Hey, too bad. You should have been keeping a better eye on your kid in the first place. Not our problem.” This is the kind of social policy proposition I’d expect to hear from a particularly misanthropic anarcho-capitalist. It’s staggeringly un-progressive, although it doesn’t surprise me that whoever was writing this nonsense still defaults to that much-abused term:
OK, then. The question this raises is: does the ODE editorial board think there should be an age of consent? If so, why?
I’m not pro-abortion, I’m just anti-fetus.
How is it possible that it is perfectly legal for a 15 to 17 year old to have a major medical procedure without parental consent, let alone notification, but then children the same age cannot even get their ears pierced without consent? Is abortion so sacred to the left that they will even fight tooth and nail against this? A high-schooler can’t even be given an aspirin without parental consent – and from what I’ve heard the side affects of an abortion are much greater.
The emerald was inconsistent? Shocking.