http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4500245.stm

It's a week old and hopefully hasn't been discussed yet, but thoughts?

Some people argue that the ruling contradicts itself in that it implies the girl was mature enough to have sex (IE: they aren't saying "ok, you can have the abortion because you weren't mature enough to make the decision to have sex," yet not mature enough to decide whether or not she wants the baby.

And if at all possible, please hold off on making this an argument over the moral (in)correctness of abortion for as long as possible.

[insert a burgerboy comment here, burgerboy]

13 year olds shouldn't get pregnant.

But I thought the rationale behind abortion was that a woman shouldn't be forced to have children she doesn't want...



Inconsistent? You betcha!


Also, what FastGamerr said.

(this post not meant to promote abortion; this post meant to tell the courts to make up their minds)

I wonder if aborted fetuses can be used for stem cell research. A lot of conservatives that are against stem cell research are for abortion...don't bother with your irony meter, the needle will bust off.

Edit: Wait, just realized I had that backwards. Oh well, I do know a few conservatives for abortion and against stem-cell.

Sounds more to me like the court is biased and trying to impose it's views on this girl. The system fails again.

Abortion should always be an option for any pregnant woman. It is a personal decision and courts should butt out. People in general, as well.

Here's an update. The girl actually had the abortion early last week, and now some people are trying to get the judge--a Catholic--excommunicated.

Even though I'm pro-abortion, I can't believe stupidity on the girl's (and possibly her family's) part in all this. It was stupid enough to have sex, but why wait three months for all this?!

I mean, surely the law wasn't involved from the very start. I don't see why this wasn't done within the first two weeks or even the first month. Theres no reason to wait that long.

I think it's stupid for the court to rule that she can't have an abortion as well. 13 years old? Granted, she's a frickin idiot. Still, that's just too much for a 13 year old to go through, and most likely she will be shunned by society just like any pregnant teen girl.

Just abort the kid and then punish the girl and her lover.

oh the irony

Idiots. Everyone who would request the excommunication of another person is nothing but a moronic busybody who can't mind their own damn business. The judge isn't there to worry about ****ing morals. He's there to settle legal matters. MORONS. ****ing idiots.

They should have made her keep it.

Abortion shouldn't be an "oops" button. It should be an "Oh god, I just got raped in a back alley" button.

When teenagers, or when anyone gets pregneant, and it's consentual sex, it ought to be instant common law marriage. You both keep it untill it's 18.

Let's cut the crap and cut to the chase, shall we?

First, you say: "Abortion shouldn't be an 'oops' button."
I say: why not?

Second, I don't understand this 'abortion is okay for rape' mentality. The baby doesn't care if it was the result of a rape or not. The end result is still the same. A future life is being terminated, rape or not. So why the hypocrisy?

Friggin' A.

You aren't going to teach kids responsiblity regarding sex if you can just whisk the baby away.

Thats not realistic.

If you consent to having sex, you're showing that you understand the possible consequences of sex.

Now, if a woman is raped and impregnanted, thats an entirely different issue.

And what's it to you if someone decides to have an abortion? Face it, Rob. Abortion is here to stay, and it is a personal decision. To deny someone this option is unconstitutional. You need to separate your morals from common sense. You can't apply your morals to other people in such a way as to infringe on the rights of others.



Sure it's realistic if you have the money for it and are willing to put up with the medical risks.



That is not a true statement. Especially with younger teens. Having sex does not require an understanding of its consequences.



I disagree. You have yet to explain why it's a different issue. The end result is the same.

And I care? It's not my job to decide. But, and thats the great thing about America, that doesn't keep me from having an opinion.

PS, Abortion isn't a right. Argue this if you will, but thats just super un-true.



If you can't support a child, and aren't willing to conceive a child you have no buisness having sex. Granted sex feels GREAT and all, but it's not super magic happy time without consequences.



Bull. Sexual education starts WAY before age 13 especially with girls, unless perhaps their mother didn't bother to teach them why the bleed for a week once a month, which I found pretty damned doubtful.

They know sex=baby.



FORCEFUL VAGINAL PENETRATION is an entirely different issue than CONSENTUAL SEX.




And this is from someone who's PRO-CHOICE.

I just don't like that abortion is used as an excuse to be IRRESPONSIBLE. Infact, that irritates the crap out of me.

And I forgot to kill the /b tag... oh well.

If you simply consider everything involved, there is no advantage to forcing the woman to keep the child, other than 'punishing' the couple. A 13 year old is never going to be able to raise a child, and it is likely that her parents aren't able to either, so either lump it on an already overloaded adoption system, or simply abort the foetus and wait until you're in a financially stable and happy relationship. An unwanted child is going to be an unloved child, and an unloved child will end up a delinquent.

We really don't need men marrying women just because he got her pregnant. That isn't a good marriage, not for the man, the woman, or any child. What we need is couples that are together because they want to be together, having children that they want to have.

As for abortion not being an 'oops' button, why not? What exactly is so wrong about having sex without responsibility? Sex feels good, you're not going to change that. Sex isn't just a baby-producing process, it feels good. So if it feels good, why not just do it? Ice-cream tastes good, but I don't want to get fat, so I eat low fat ice-cream.
With a combination of contraception, and then abortion (or the day-after pill, does that count as abortion?) if that fails, you can have sex without the baby, and then when the time is right, you try for a baby. Where exactly is the 'wrong' in that?

If you seriously think that people are only ever going to have sex when they want to have a baby, then you're the unrealistic one.

(Sorry, Pommy, but we did make it about ten posts! I bet you're so proud of us)

what kind of slayg is having sex at 13 yr old? Well i hope she has her life ruined completely. (unleess raped)

I'm all for abortion. life is cheap, especially mine.

SIX BILLION IS MIRACLE ENOUGH!!

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I'm with ruthven. I'm against people having babies!

Then why are they having sex?

I mean, thats what sex is for.

Can't support a child? DON'T HAVE SEX.

You can't just have sex and ignore the consequences, that is plain stupid.


Because it feels good is NOT an excuse to treat it irresponsibly. THAT is downright INSANE.

According to such logic, serial killers shouldn't responsible for their actions, because it feels good. Hitler should go down a HERO, because he did "what felt good."

qtf

Anyone with half a brain can have sex and avoid a pregancy. There are plenty of different options for people. Granted, it's not 100%, but still.

Avenger JUST beat me to it. It's really not that difficult to have sex and not have children. A little bit of protection is NOT difficult to come by.

On topic, I'm pro-choice, so if the girl wants to abort, fine by me. But she should've done it sooner than three months, but I think someone else has already said that. I also agree with everyone who says the courts should keep out of it too.

Silly people.

(Girls getting pregnant at 13, not massassians, though they are for the most part silly people.)

Happens in Finland too, so hey.

They are having sex because sex feels good.

They could either:
1 - not have sex
2 - have sex with protection
3 - have sex, get pregnant, have abortion.

All three are perfectly viable options, and they all prevent an unwanted child from being brought into the world. What you are saying is that 1 is somehow superior to 2 and 3, without qualifying how or why. 3 has the fairly obvious health risks to the mother, and so 2 is probably preferable, but that is about it.

When you desire food, you eat food. Not eating food makes you starve, and is very unhealthy. Similarly, when you desire sex, you must have sex to fulfil that desire. Trying to 'suppress' that desire is unhealthy, though it may not kill you, it is still unhealthy.

There is nothing inherently 'wrong' with feeling good.
The fairly obvious difference to a serial killer being that this doesn't involve anyone other than consenting couples, and doesn't affect anyone else.

I also reserve the right to invoke Godwin's Law whenever I wish.

hehehehehehe

I'm not a religious person, but I find the very concept of abortion to be disturbing. My girlfriend has a friend whose sister is mentally retarded and keeps having children that the state keeps taking away from her. I believe she's had 2 or 3 taken away already and is pregnant again. People like that should be court-ordered to have their tubes tied. I don't believe that outlawing abortion is going to solve this epidemic of idiocy. As a matter of fact, I'm not quite sure that anything can.

There isn't anything "inherently" wrong with feeling good, but it becomes wrong when a non-consenting person is involved.

If you believe that an unborn fetus is a life, then he would have to consent to the sex. Since he can't, then he is a non-consenting person affected by the situation. If he is aborted then a life a killed. If he is allowed to live then he will most likely live a bad life due to the situation.

And also, I may sound brainwashed when I say this, but no protection is 100% effective. you just can't argue it; it's a fact. Now, 99.9% effectiveness may seem good enough, but consider the amount of people having sex because "it feels good". Suddenly that 0.01% of unwanted pregenancies translates into a large amount of babies brought into this world by people not ready to take care of them.

Apart from the fact that you assume that 100% of that 0.01% are unable to cope with a baby. Which is naughty.

I never assumed that, but you can't assume that ALL of them are able to cope with it, which isn't realistic at all. There's going to be at least some who aren't ready for it. Like the 13 year old girl.

Mort-Hog wins.

If it's naughty to assume that 100% can't cope, I'd say it's fairly implicit that the opposite case is also true

But even so, I'd take those odds. Most of the times I've had sex, we've used two types of contraceptive, just to be on the safe side. If that's 0.01 x 0.01 then you get a combined chance of conception of 0.0001, or from the other angle 99.9999% safe. One chance in 1 million (1 in a thousand times one in a thousand is one in a million). That's going to take a LOT of sex to batter through.

(And yes, I'm aware that it could happen on the first try, but that's just the nature of statistics)

Fixed, baby killer.


Shintock, go try out for a cheerleading squad.

I'll rather respect the first post.

The fetus obviously is life, considering a sperm cell on its own is life. But it isn't human life by any stretch of the imagination. Plant life is vastly more complex than a foetus in early development, and to call the destruction of this organism 'murder' is vastly hypocritical considering the billions and trillions of bacteria you destroy every day, not to mention the huge number of complex organisms such as weeds that you destroy for the sake of personal desire.

Not until a fetus has a fully developed nervous system can it be described as anything approaching 'human life'. Destroying it at that point, or after.. yes, that is possibly a woolly issue.

But even so, if the mother clearly isn't able to raise the child, what good will it do to force her to keep it? The child will grow up unwanted and unloved; ending it before it can even begin will be a mercy. A child is not a tool of punishment.

No.

Can you stop that discussion here? No.

How mature of you to completely disregard and insult the views of many of us Massassians. Sure, you can have another opinion or view, but that's no reason to be insulting.

Grow up.

Really, because I'm pretty sure you achieved the same thing with your post.