Schools arrange secret abortions

[kiwiana]

A mother is angry her 16-year-old daughter had a secret abortion arranged by a school counsellor.

Helen, not her real name, found out about the termination four days after it had happened. "I was horrified. Horrified that she'd had to go through that on her own, and horrified her friends and counsellors had felt that she shouldn't talk to us," she

Comments

[subluxate]

Oh hey, that's...pleasant abortion law. At least there's a way for women to access them, but man, having to claim mental illness so as to not continue a pregnancy?

Ugh, this whole article. Yay, there's a school for teen parents (presumably mothers in very large part)! But...what does that have to do with the actual law and how parents are trying to be entitled to control over their daughters' reproductive rights in some cases? What does it have to do with anything?

Ideally, there would be no need to keep abortions secret from parents and parents would always be supportive of whatever their kid chose, but this isn't an ideal world, and people can be shit about other people's right to choose--especially in a power situation of parent-child, where the parent wants their beliefs to hold ultimate sway over their child as long as possible. So the parents can suck it up and support their kids. If they want to be kept in the loop, be open with kids ahead of time about being supportive. How is this hard?

[theepiccek]

having to claim mental illness so as to not continue a pregnancy?

it's not quite that. It's more - 'having a baby at this point in my life would be a severe drain on my emotional wellbeing'. but yeah, overall it's pretty liberal abortion law, and NORMALLY the gynecologist/obstetrician who gives the second okay is the one to perform the D&C.

[subluxate]

Ah, okay, I misunderstood that part, then. Thank you for the clarification.

[maynardsong]

That's how it is in India - they're allowed in cases of economic need, health/mortality need, and mental/emotional need. Well, being just plain not yet ready counts as mental/emotional.

[darkmanifest]

I'm also grossed out by the inclusion of the story about Rayelene Mou for several reasons: it's NOT FUCKING RELEVANT

Yeah, the inclusion of that baffled the shit out of me, too. Nice way to imply "this is the right thing to do, unlike abortion."

[pocochina]

I'm absolutely boggling over that first story. The woman flew into enough of a fit of rage to go public about her daughter's abortion? God, I can't imagine why that poor girl wouldn't want to involve her family. "Horrified"..."wild"...."absolutely livid"...not that there needs to be a justification for teens having medical privacy, but that's all I'm seeing here.

[weedwolf]

+1

[ombredelarue]

I saw this headline at the dairy today, and was amazed at how much it sounded like a moral-outrage tabloid piece. The standards of journalism in this country, urgh.

The language used to describe the girls is um, interesting. The girl who decides on a termination has ~secret abortions!!! The girl who keeps her baby "plucks up the courage". Urgh again. Bring on the law reform.

[pythia]

God, this. When I read it earlier today I was pretty much "WTF is this shit?"

[lightningxsnow]

These laws are in place for good reasons. Cases of incest aside, young girls are very influenced by their parent's views and making the parents notified would cause some girls to continue their pregnancies against their wishes. No female should be pressured into motherhood against her will.

This. Also, my parents were very clear that if I ever got pregnant as a teenager (or misbehaved in some other fairly major way) they would send me to boot camp/boarding school. I would much rather have a minor surgical procedure without them knowing than have my life completely altered by them knowing.

[lightningxsnow]

(Yeah, and I get that the boarding school threat doesn't even really make sense in the context of a pregnancy, but let's just say that even if they couldn't realistically do that, they were strict disciplinarians.)