Opponents decry 12-year-old AL rape victim's abortion waiver

WSFA ^ | July 19, 2017 | WSFA 12 News Staff

[Morgana]

Two opponents of a 12-year-old Alabama girl's decision to have an abortion after she was raped by a relative spoke out Wednesday during a news conference in Montgomery.

Win Johnson, former Legal Director for the Administrative Office of Courts under Chief Justice Roy Moore, and Lorie Mullins, Executive Director of COPE Pregnancy Center, who has counseled post-abortive women, spoke regarding the court's decision.

On Wednesday, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals granted the unidentified child's petition to have an abortion without parental consent, a decision that bypasses Alabama's Parental Consent law.

"There are two victims of this decision by the Court of Civil Appeals," Johnson said. "The unborn child and the 12-year-old mother."

Johnson went on, "In essence, what the courts are saying to this young girl is this: 'We, the courts of Alabama, consider you mature enough to decide to murder your own unborn child.'"

[publius911]

since youre a male you wouldn’t understand...

A most irrational and irrelevant statement.

This is a NOT a social or medical or legal conundrum. Certainly not a stupidly labeled "gender" question.

It's a deeply philosophical and transcendental one that I classify as a classic "utterly dismal" question from the "you can't make stuff like this up..." that I would consider myself wise enough (or arrogant enough) to attempt to "answer."

[publius911]

since youre a male you wouldn’t understand...

A most irrational and irrelevant statement.

This is a NOT a social or medical or legal conundrum. Certainly not a stupidly labeled "gender" question.

It's a deeply philosophical and transcendental one that I classify as a classic "utterly dismal" question from the "you can't make stuff like this up..." that I would consider myself wise enough (or arrogant enough) to attempt to "answer."

[Sequoyah101]

‘We, the courts of Alabama, consider you mature enough to decide to murder your own unborn child.’”

This is harsh. There are some people who are so hidebound they simply can’t see beyond their own selfish positions. To say 12 is too young to bear the decision and “guilt” of abortion and not see what pain and suffering this child would go through carrying and delivering another child for 9 months and then for life even if it were adopted? Selfish and stupid is what they are. They need to experience what this child is facing then tell us what they would do or have someone tell them what they must do and declare them murderers for doing anything else.

Pinheads.

[Sequoyah101]

It is the issue that divides us and destroys us that some people don’t get that they can say all they want but they can’t stop it. It is an emotional argument that do gooders can take to heart and use to proclaim, no dictate, their purity.

They fairly scream that if you don’t make this the single issue of your mind it is impossible for you to be a conservative. Black and white, that’s it. They would do a whole lot better to polish their own halos and not worry so much about those of others.

[Tennessee Nana]

Kid my compassion is for the other young one ...the baby...

did you forget her ???

or does she not fit into your agenda for this thread ...

murdering a baby is never compassion...for the child or for the female carrying her...

telling the truth about the matter is the compassionate thing to do...

Kid I was pro-life years before pro-life was cool...

I fought the early wars in the 70s...when I was accused of being anti-Christian because I was against abortion and had death threatening phone calls in the middle of the night..

I took girls into my own home and supported them financially when they were tossed out by their parents for bringing shame and refusing to have an abortion to cover up their ‘sin”

No insult from you will stop me from telling the truth about abortion...its always a sin and someone dies every time...

Its not compassion towards the 12 yo to force upon her the everlasting horror of remembering she willing participated in murdering by BBQ, poison or a knife her own child...

Flame away kid...

[bigdaddy45]

By the way, and just so know, it’s this shrill, “I’m right you’re wrong, and you’re a man anyway so you wouldn’t understand “ attitude, with no expression of compassion at all for a raped 12 year old is exactly what turns people away from Christians and conservatives.

[backwoods-engineer]

Abortion IS a sin. It is murder of the unborn child. The child could easily be taken early by C-section, and the girl would be in no more danger than if she had her appendix out.

I can't believe I'm reading the justification of abortion on FR. Shake. My. Head.

[backwoods-engineer]

Right on, Nana. Abortion is ALWAYS a sin, just like murder.

[backwoods-engineer]

It is NOT harsh. Killing babies is harsh. Abortion is the murder of the unborn child, no matter how people like you try to justify it.

[backwoods-engineer]

So be it. Right is right, and abortion is WRONG. Let the whole world be against us. God is for us.

[KC_Conspirator]

May God have mercy on your soul.

[trisham]

I don’t know if that’s true. The child was mature enough to become pregnant. Why assume that she isn’t mature enough to give birth? If I were her mother, I would get her good medical care and welcome my grandchild with open arms.

I would also find out what went wrong and fix it (the culprit) immediately.

[Tennessee Nana]

Gee kid I’m in a time warp here...is this 1973 or 2017 ???

you just said the kind of things those other anti-life callers used to say to me...

they were anonymous also...

it was the years before IDs on phones...

congrats...

BTW abortion is always murder...someone DIES...

it aint a fun solution for the smaller one...

[erkelly]

My 12-year-old would be at the GYN Surgery Clinic as fast as I could get her there, and I am pro-life. A pregnancy at the age of 12 is very very high risk. My primary responsibility would be to my child whose life is at risk. While I agree, the fetus/embryo does have a right to life, that right to life is never at the expense of another innocent, in this case a child herself, a child who was raped! This type of abortion, by the way, has always been legal in this country. The “guilt” would not be on my daughter, it would be on me, as I made the decision not to allow her young life to be further torn apart by a pregnancy that was the result of rape. And, I would be far less afraid to answer to God for the embryo’s death, than I would be to answer for my daughter’s death (yes, she can die from this) and, at the very least, a year of her young life needlessly ruined by the trauma of childbirth or discomforts of pregnancy as or her little girl’s body that is NOT ready for pregnancy (even though she is ovulating) and could damaged so badly she could never conceive/carry a pregnancy as an adult. And by the way, a C-section is not without its risks either, and most likely at the young age of 12, likely to happen anyway. What is the matter with you people? The court has acted in the child’s best interest.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I have a friend who was assisting with abortions at Bronx Pediatric Hospital in around 1970 --- before Roe, but when abortion was legal in NY State--- working with a professor of hers who liked to publish, but didn't like to write. It was she --- we'll call her Connie -- who wrote up this guy's "studies" which "proved" that abortion provided a crucial therapeutic benefit to girls in this situation.

Except it didn't.

What she found was that the sequelae of abortion were much worse than the sequelae of childbearing in these same circumstances.

She was intensely interested in finding out why. Why did the young girls who aborted end up with higher rates of psychological distress as indicated by substance abuse, depression, suicidal ideation and behavior, self-harming of other kinds (cutting, neglect of ongoing medical problems), remaining with abusers who punched, choked, slashed them, and voicing sadness and pain over their abortion experiences?

Here's what she observed:, in no particular order of importance:

• girls who had their babies tended to stay in contact with the helping professions --- schools, clinics, follow-up appointments--- where they often got extra help and were accountable to someone. There was continuity of care. By contrast, girls who had abortions pretty much got the message, "There, we solved your little problem. Closure, get it? Now we hope we never see you again."

• Similarly, girls who had their babies could often gather (or be directed to) a little community of care, including their extended families--- aunts, very often grandmothers, the boyfriend's mother or grandmother, etc. --- as well as churches and charitable groups like Pregnancy Aid centers. They would take a more well-rounded interest in her continuing well-being, rather than just get rid of pregnancy and then say "Done!" Young mothers with little babies attract help.

  Young post-abortion girls don't get any help, and often don't particularly think they need or deserve it.

  Bottom line: an aborted girl is an abandoned girl.

• Young girls don't think abstractly or successfully euphemize their experience. They experience it raw. They don't say "I terminated my pregnancy," they say "I killed my baby." (Or: "THEY killed my baby.")

• Girls who were aborted, didn't identify with the other adults in the situation (e.g. social worker, nurse, counselor, doctor). They identified with the child. They thought, "If it's better for that baby to be dead than to live in such a mess (her situation), it's probably better for ME to be dead than to live in that situation."

• "If it's better to be dead than to be a child of mine, I must be useless, worthless, basically no good."

• The girls who aborted usually did it at a later stage of pregnancy than the "national average." This is because young girls often aren't even aware that they're pregnant until their can't fit into their jeans any more, or they feel movement. That could be 4-6 months along. Abortions at that stage are highly emotionally as well as physically traumatic.

• Many girls got to late pregnancy because they knew they were pregnant but concealed it. They actually didn't want abortions.

• They were being pushed into it by every powerful adult in their lives. They were the most powerless ones in the situation --- except for the their babies who would inevitably end up in a bloody heap in a clinic bucket. Now that's powerless.

And there were other considerations as well. This was, as I said, 45 years ago.

But the professor --- the one who liked to publish --- did he publish this? No, he did not. He told Connie this did not prove the therapeutic value of abortion and therefore did not constitute useful research. He said she should go out and find other "findings." She did. And they published what was useful --- to them.

I understand the good motiastion of people who want to "help" a pregnant 12 year old girl by making the pregnancy "go away." What I do not understand is resistance to the reality that abortion --- which is not therapeutic on ANY level --- does not "help".

[bigdaddy45]

Very interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for posting!!

[Mrs. Don-o]

You’re welcome.

[thecodont]

Great post.

[lee martell]

Thank you.
I never even thought of analyzing the perspective of the young girl who went through with an abortion.
You have opened my eyes to possibilities that must be considered.

[Sequoyah101]

It took a representative of “you people” a lot longer to emerge from your lair than I thought it would. You are slipping but your platitudes are still the same.