Judge Okays Abortion For Girl, 13

St. Petersburg Times ^ | 5/3/05 | Associated Press

[Captain Peter Blood]

I called it adoption hell because of all of the sad cases I have read of people trying to adopt children in this country and all of the bureaucratic hassles they have to go through to do it. Why do you think there are people who want to adopt go to other countries to do so, it is just somewhat easier than it is in this country.
I don't necessarily support abortion either but I also don't let emotion get in the way of rational & pragmatic thinking on the issue either which most people who discuss this issue do.
I have given the Abortion issue a lot of thought and I do feel life is a gift but you see once you decide there are exceptions to what are permissible abortions then where does it stop.
If you agree that abortions are permissible in cases of Rape, Incest and the Life of the Mother what else would be okay. Would it be acceptable if it was your 13 year old daughter and you would do anything to keep her life from being ruined and protect her. You see there just are not any hard and fast absolutes here and more questions are raised than answered.
Now if I offended you I apologize.

[Captain Peter Blood]

That all sounds good but I doubt it would work out like that.

[madprof98]

You see there just are not any hard and fast absolutes here and more questions are raised than answered.

I don't see anything of the kind. I have cared for children conceived in rape and helped to place them for adoption. They were every bit as human as me and you. There is one hard and fast absolute here: no killing the innocent. Why is that so hard for you "pragmatic" types?

[ClearCase_guy]

no absolutes.

Disagree.

The fetus is alive -- chemical processes of life are going on from the moment of conception.
The fetus has a unique genetic code. This is a human genetic code. We're talking about a person.

Abortion is about killing an innocent human child. There are times when a pregnancy is inconvenient or unfortunate. But I see absolutely no circumstances that would justify killing an innocent human child. Choosing Life is always the right choice.

[yellowdoghunter]

You are probably right, which makes me even sadder and MADDER! I know we don't live in a perfect world, but there are other answers besides abortion....it just seems people aren't willing to get tough with situations like these.

I pray for this little girl and her unborn child.

[sr4402]

Alvarez held up the abortion until a psychological evaluation was completed, but he ruled Monday that the teen would not be physically or emotionally harmed by the abortion.

Typical Liberal judge. Just because he said it does not make it true. The chances are this young woman will be scarred for life. She will remember this act, she will have feelings about it and if statistics are correct, she will stands a higher risk of cancer and future fertility and/or pregnancy problems.

The commandment, THOU SHALT NOT MURDER, stands before her, whether the states says so or not. And the fact that she is headed in that direction indicates that her spiritual state is nowhere near to God.

God is near to her, awaiting to hear the words "Lord Jesus forgive me for my sin through your death on the cross, I repent of my life and turn to you". The result may be a lovely baby and a woman becoming a mother instead of a wreck.

Our society says that motherhood is not good, God on the other hand does.

[ga medic]

I don't have a link but I read somewhere that she was living with a man 28-30 years old when she ran away from the group home. I am not sure whether this is the father . The judge asked her who the father was and the girl would only answer "a boy".

[tiredoflaundry]

Good Lord!

[areafiftyone]

Why do you think there are people who want to adopt go to other countries to do so, it is just somewhat easier than it is in this country.

I agree it is hell. My cousins had to go to Columbia South America twice to adopt children. Not a very friendly place to Americans either! They could not adopt children here because they cost too much money for a newborn and it seems that Hollywierd has the monopoly on adoption in this country.

[IamConservative]

Hard to even imagine this became a court case. The judiciary brings a lot of this upon themselves by accepting cases like this. I guess if morality is not legislated it will be adjudicated.

[DYngbld]

If I could I would adopt them both myself.

[bookworm100]

A 13 year old is too young to be tried as an adult for a capital crime but not too young to make this decision. Go figure.

[TKDietz]

Why is it so hard to imagine how this became a court issue? The girl is a ward of the state. She's a minor and would need parental consent for such a procedure. Since she is a ward of the state, the court takes the place of parents in the matter of consent. If the girl is legally competent to make her own decision in this type of matter, similar to the way a teenager might be competent to decide which parent he wants to live with in a custody dispute, the court is generally going to go along with the wishes of the minor. The judge has some discretion here but he has to have a good reason for not allowing the procedure. A moral objection to abortion alone would not be sufficient justification to withstand review by an appellate court. His decision would have been overturned on appeal.

[cvq3842]

Some would turn the statement on its head, and say how can "pro-choice" types be sincere about, say, feeding starving children or preventing young soldiers from dying in what these types consider an "unnecessary war," when the pro-choice folks wouldn't have cared if these people had been "terminated" during pregnancy and not been born at all.

[Captain Peter Blood]

So I am going to take it that you two people fall into the category of no abortions under any circumstances.
Now that would put you on the extreme right in this position which is fine but also makes up a minority view on this issue.

[CSM]

We should just end the life of the 13 year old. That would prevent the cycle from ever starting. Heck, it doesn't sound like her quality of life us up to par anyway.

[Ciexyz]

Now she'll be free to go out and continue the behavior that got her pregnant in the first place.

[ClearCase_guy]

What I truly don't understand is the folks who embrace the "grey area". How can anyone decide "this criteria" says its OK to kill but "this criteria" says we have to leave it alone. How can that be decided? It's personal opinion. Viability? Consciousness? Science moves the goalposts on those all the time, so the criteria is meaningless.

I see two positions that might be seen as logically consistent:

1) If the baby is still in the mother, it can be killed. This is how they justify late-term partial-birth abortions.
2) If conception has occured, killing the baby is murder.

You may think Option #2 is a minority viewpoint, but no other viewpoint is both logical and humane. What you propose (if the case is rape ... if it's incest ...) is just situationist ethics, which are always decided in the interests of the powerful. No thank you.

[IamConservative]

Technically, I understand exactly how this became a court case in the society we have developed into.

In the abstract, what is hard to imagine is that we have developed a society where a person can sit in judgment of whether or not a human life can continue. In this case, the human life is a matter of weeks old. In the case of Terry, many years old.