Obviously, that last word should be “pregnancy.”

This is just silly. Pregnancy and childbirth are as invasive and as dangerous as a medical intervention–more so than an abortion. It requires doctors’ visits, testing, changed lifestyles, etc. Plus, it has life-long consequences–the existence of biological offspring–which abortion does not. It’s completely ridiculous to treat abortion as something more invasive, more dangerous and more demanding of parental intervention than abortion. Just the opposite is true.

Aside from which, pregnancy really isn’t just another medical situation. It turns a person into a mother. Biologically, socially and emotionally, it’s unique. If your thirteen-year-old is too immature to choose abortion, it makes no sense to say that she’s mature enough to cope with the immense transformation that goes with pregnancy. Likewise, if you’ve got a pro-life teenager who doesn’t want to have an abortion, and you give parents the authority to force one on her, then you’re saying that she’s too immature to give birth but she’s NOT too immature to deal with the psychic damage that comes from having a procedure she thinks of as murder.

Apart from theoretical philosophical concerns, sexual matters really aren’t treated as just another medical procedure when it comes to minors’ rights. Minors, particularly minor girls, have a high risk of suffering parental abuse when they have a sexually-related medical condition. So from a practical public policy perspective, it makes perfect sense to say that most girls who have loving parents will probably tell them about pregnancy (because it’s just easier on the girl in the long run) and the girls who don’t should be able to get their abortions. I really have no sympathy for people who are more concerned with their parental “rights” than with the possibility that a girl with an abusive parent will have to tell that parent about a pregnancy. If you’re that unusual loving parent whose teenage daughter nevertheless doesn’t want to tell you about her pregnancy, well, tough luck. For society as a whole, it’s much better to allow the girl to make her own choice–most of the time they’ll involve their parents, and if not then there’s probably a damn good reason, and cases where neither of these things are true are the exception.

Y’know, there’s a difference between parental-consent laws and imposing a duty on parents to provide every medical intervention that you, personally, find appropriate.

If parental-consent laws were really about keeping parents of all mindsets in the picture, then shouldn’t there be some way for parents to force their daughter to have an abortion if she wants to have the baby? It would be no more cruel than to force her to go through with the pregnancy when she doesn’t want to.

But that’s not what parental-consent laws are really about – they’re about keeping girls under the thumb of anti-choice parents (that’s the situation in which parental consent would really come into play, right?) as often as possible, regardless of what they want for their own lives and bodies.

Y’know, there’s a difference between parental-consent laws and imposing a duty on parents to provide every medical intervention that you, personally, find appropriate.

I knew a girl in high school who was in a bi-racial relationship, and got pregnant. She wanted to have the baby, but her parents freaked. They tried to force her to get an abortion (it didn’t work; she ran away until the baby was born). If “parental rights” are SO important, how do they feel about cases like this?? If a parent can force their daughter to carry a pregnancy to term, doesn’t it also follow that they have the right to force her to abort?

Of course in a case like that, they don’t agree with parental rights AT ALL. They only want to have rights for parents who agree with them. Which is typical, but still disgusting.

I don’t mean to be glib, but if I run my own child over while driving I’m going to be consulted on the treatment they get. If I deliberately break my own child’s arm, I’m still going to be consulted on the medical treatment they get.

The difference is that if you do either of these things, you will be declared an unfit parent and have your kid taken away. If you make a decision to treat your kid’s life threatening illness with crackpot woo-woo, you will also have your kid taken away. You have the right to make medical decisions for your kid until you start making the wrong ones and then that right ends. I don’t believe parents have rights to make medical decisions anyway; they have a responsibility to keep their kid as healthy as possible and when they shirk that responsibility by willfully withholding medical care, I fully support removing the parent from the equation. That’s why I don’t support parental consent laws.

Here, a person gains the right to medical privacy at the age of 14, at which point a doctor cannot inform their parents or anyone else of anything without their consent, excluding the relevant authorities in cases of risk to self and others. From 10 to 14 there is a period of doctor’s discretion, where they are not obliged to inform parents of medical concerns relating to the child unless they feel it is in the child’s best interests.

I think it works pretty well.

Then again, I was out of home at 15 and got put through hell with various parental consent laws. Girls who don’t live with their parents have enough hoops to deal with without inhibiting their access to medical treatment.

The difference is that there are not many parents who would deny the appropriate medical care to their child in those cases.

Exactly. If a large portion of American parents were against splints and casts for religious reasons, then I’d say no parental notification should be needed in treating a broken bone.

for the woman to endure weeks of sickness and unwelcome bodily transformation, followed by many hours of incredible pain… followed by years of hard work, emotional strain, expense, and responsibility.

Thank you!! In so many abortion debates people act as if it’s just a question of whether or not the person wants the baby to exist after the pregnancy. Even if someone is willing to put it up for adoption, the pregnancy and birth are basically a nine-month handicap plus an often dangerous physical event (not sure what else to call it) which can permanently change the way the body functions. Even if the baby was guaranteed to just vanish the second it’s out, that wouldn’t solve the problem.

Again, I think this is less about parents having a “right” to be involved, and more about parents creating a family situation where the kid would want the parents to be involved.

That is the ideal, yes, but you can’t legislate based on the ideal. The existence of forced consent is worrisome because it puts those young girls who are in an already precarious situation, in more danger. Yes, I know that if I or my sisters had gotten pregnant when we were younger, we wouldn’t hesitate to talk to our parents about getting an abortion. This law does not affect girls like me. It affects girls who are abused mentally or physically. Girls who have been impregnated by their father or their uncle or their mother’s boyfriend. Girls with strict conservative parents. This law directly harms girls who don’t feel safe going to their guardian, and for that reason should be protected against them not forced to place their vulnerability in their oppressor’s hands.