Roundup: When a 15-Year-Old Gets an Abortion

Mar 25, 2010, 10:10am

Robin Marty

A 15-year-old receives a completely legal abortion and her pro-life mother is livid. Plus, who needs a date for the prom?

Teenage pregnancy is never an easy topic to discuss. We always hope parents can talk to their kids about waiting to have sex, and about taking the proper precautions if they do not. And, should the worst happen and they find themselves facing an unplanned pregnancy, we hope that they feel they can talk to their parents about what is the best option going forward.

We also recognize that although those things happen in a perfect scenario, you often find situations where they don’t.

A 15-year-old girl in an affluent suburb of Seattle found herself facing an unplanned pregnancy, and chose to terminate that pregnancy without speaking to her mother about her choice. Her mother has taken the opportunity to take her anger out on both the school that facilitated the abortion and the clinic that performed it, regardless of the fact that her mother gave them permission to do both.

The mother of a Ballard High School student is fuming after the health center on campus helped facilitate her daughter’s abortion during school hours.

The mother, whom KOMO News has chosen to identify only as “Jill,” says the clinic kept the information “confidential.”

When she signed a consent form, Jill figured it meant her 15-year-old could go to the Ballard Teen Health Center located inside the high school for an earache, a sports physical, even birth control, but not for help terminating a pregnancy.

“She took a pregnancy test at school at the teen health center,” she said. “Nowhere in this paperwork does it mention abortion or facilitating abortion.”

The representative from the program points out that the mother signed a form stating her daughter could independentantly consent to a wide variety of medical assistance.

“The form describes what the parent is consenting to, but also illustrates what a youth may independently consent to,” T.J. Cosgrove, King County Public Health Department Manager for School Based Programs, told KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross Wednesday.

Cosgrove read the consent form to Ross: “Youth may independently access reproductive health care at any age. They may independently receive drug and alcohol services and mental health counseling from age 13.”

Because Washington state does not have a parental consent or notification law, the teenage girl would have been completely able to walk into any reproductive health center and request an abortion on her own, without notifying her parents, should she have chosen not to access one through the school.

The mother, who didn’t find out until later when her daughter had an unrelated health issue that she had earlier had an abortion, claims both that her daughter is pro-life, and that her daughter was told she must “conceal it from her family” in order to not have to pay for the procedure.

The incident, “Makes me feel like my rights were completely stripped away,” [the girl’s mother] said.

Of course, forcing the daughter to have to get parental permission, or possibly even be talked into carrying to term because that is what her family would prefer, would be stripping her rights away instead.

Bonus Quote: In regards to Rep. Bart Stupak no longer getting a “defender of life” award from the Susan B. Anthony Candidate List Fund, and no one else being selected as a replacement:

“The sensibility was — you invite the prom date and then they dump you at the last minute. And then you call somebody else at the last minute and say, hey, do you want to go with me?”

March 24, 2010

Obama Signs Executive Order on Abortion Today – ABC News

Abortion looms as election issue after US reforms – Reuters

The Political Fallout – America Magazine

BUYBC: Time to Close the Gap on EC Access – Huffington Post

Health-Care Postmortem – National Catholic Register

The Early Word: Nukes, Banks, Abortion – New York Times

Kelly McParland: Michael Ignatieff’s abortion fixation – National Post

Neugebauer follows apology for outburst with ad – The Associated Press

Away from the Cameras, President Obama to Sign Executive Order on Abortion – ABC News

Covert Operation – ChristianityToday.com

Obama signs executive order on abortion – NEWS.com.au