Parental Consent Needed For Tattoos, Not Abortions

WFTV.com ^ | 4:49 p.m. EDT July 11, 2003

[Kozak]

If something were to happen to my daughter at school, and she needed to be taken to the hospital immediately, everyone would be doing backflips (and rightly so) trying to locate my husband or myself for our verbal parental consent should an emergency medical procedure need to be performed.

As an ER physician I have been placed in the position where a minor child (16 yo) was brought to the ER for abdominal pain, during the course of the evaluation we determined that the patient was pregnant and probably had a bleeding ectopic pregnancy ( pregnancy outside the uterus). At that point under California law I COULD NOT TELL THE PARENTS WHAT WAS WRONG WITH OUT THE CHILDS PERMISSION. When the kid refused, and the dad asked me what was wrong, I couldn't tell him. I almost got assaulted at that point. We finally got the daughter to consent to inform her parents and we got her taken care of. Potentially she could have stood her ground and we would have been in a real jam.

[getmeouttaPalmBeachCounty_FL]

***"I almost got assaulted at that point."***

NO DOUBT!

Now, all parents in the state of Florida would basically be banned to a waiting room, while their CHILD exercises her right to choose what to do next. Most teens don't even know "what they want to be when they grow up" yet!

These judges need to go.

[daveoverpar]

***These judges need to go ****
Judges? I don't see any indication that these were judges. No real indication they considered anything other than 'It Takes a Village'.

[davidosborne]

we are raising our girls in Florida, and I have to say ( as David's wife ) I am very scared since I obviously have no parental authority!