anyone have stats on minors having abortions? how many were there last year? zero? one? most?

Stats on child abortions are irrelevant to the discussion of whether or not a child should be able to have a medical procedure without the knowlege or consent of the guardians.

Hell, take "abortion" out of the discussion altogether so that it's just a discussion on whether or not non-emergency medical procedures should be performed on children without the parents knowledge or consent.

...but if you wanna talk red-herrings...fish on.

anyone have stats on minors having abortions? how many were there last year? zero? one? most?

Your so right- there was only one girl under 18 in the entire country who killed her unborn child.

It's really amazing how much effort you put in to be such an abysmal idiot. Keep it up - you epitomize the pathetic left.

well, apparently a few people here would rather attack me than answer the question.

thats one way to avoid saying "I don't know"

The question was an irrelevant attempt to go somewhere YOU want to go.....why don't you just go there. Say what's on your mind instead of throwing out irrelevant questions.....and if you call that an attack on you, well....stop crying and grow up.

2,500 minors had abortions in the year 2002.....and what does that have to do with the discussion of whether or not they should be able to have a medical procedure without the knowledge or consent of the parent/guardian? Oh yeah....NOTHING.

That also doesn't take into account all the minors who 'said they were 18'. Not to mention all the 14 year olds who said as much that they were 14, but the abortion clinics aren't up front with law enforcement let alone statisticians and research doctors.

But, as has been said, the abortions and their number is not in any way relevant to the point.

The question was an attempt to find out who would be affected by a law change - which is certainly relevant.

Further, how many of those 2,500 abortions were had by women 17 years old?

Sorry, not everything is black and white like some people around here seem to think.

Actually, my 2,500 number is not only irrelevant, but 100% made up on purpose....to show how irrelevant it is concerning the SC looking at the matter. If ZERO children had abortions, it would be as irrelevant as if 500,000 did in this matter. The ONLY thing that's relevant is:

Should minors be allowed to have medical procedures without the knowledge or consent of a parent/guardian.....and should medical facilities like PP abortion factories be able to perform medical procedures on minors without the knowledge or consent of the parent/guardian.

You can dance around irrelevant numbers all you want, but it doesn't make 'em pertinent to the discussion...only a red herring.

once again, its not irrelevant to know how many people would be affected by a law.

Just because you don't care doesn't mean that its not a reasonable thing to ask.

It's only relevant if you take the stance that:

An unjust law is acceptable if it only treats a few people unjustly

or:

A just law isn't worth enforcing if only a few choose to break it (or worth writting if only a few commit such acts that would prompt said law).

Thankfully, those are not precepts our law system is based upon. In fact, our system is based upon the antithesis of those statements,

MJohnson - thats true only if laws exist to reinforce morality without regard to the practical consequences.

for instance, what if this law simply created a black market for abortions? Then the question becomes - Should we allow young women to have legal safe abortions or should we put them in a situation where they seek dangerous, illegal abortions?

sorry, that might be too complicated for you to worry about.

This isn't an issue of legislative morality, mattk. That's too complicated for you to not worry about, apparently.

It's an issue about the rights the law grants to parents in regards to their children.

You also bring up the issue of enforcability, which is completely non sequitar to your point about morality. And again, you are both correct and completely out of context.

The ability of the government to enforce the laws it writes absolutely SHOULD be considered before the law is written. A law that cannot be enforced, a law that will be violated no matter what the government says, a law that has only the effect of forcing people to continue doing what they were allready doing only in a less safe more inappropriate manner, that is a BAD law.

But how many people will actually violate the law has asbolutely nothing to do with how easy the law can be violated. Again, the actual numbers of persons does not matter unless you intend to take a rather half-assed 'good enough for government work' approach to the law, and only consider it unenforcable if it is violated by masses of people rather then a few people, IRREGUARDLESS of how unfair the law is or how easy it is to violate or impossible to enforce in the first place. That is a BAD way to write law.

In short Matt, the 'numbers' only matter if you're willing to cut corners. Willing to excuse the wrong doing of the few (or willing to excuse the laws injustice toward a few).

the numbers also matter to see if this is a wedge issue - addressing a non-problem in order to reinforce your base voters.

it seems to me that you're completely uninterested in finding out _why_ young women would get abortions without their parents permission. i wwould like to address who this happens to and why it happens to them, rather than just saying "NOPE! CAN'T DO THAT!"

I think the 'why' of such things is far more complicated then you seem to credit it being. I don't think you can lump 2000 abortions under a single 'why', nor even a dozen. There are perhaps 1284 'why's. You think you'll address them all? Shall we be honest with each other? I think liberals will address them all and make things all the worse for it, because despite their rather high sense of self-value, not even the mighty liberal can micromanage the lives of other people with any margin of success, let alone whether they have the right to try to begin with.

I can only tell you this: This ISNT a non-issue. And it still doesn't matter how many minors have abortions, because this 'non-issue' was made an issue by the media. They even have these 'situations' portrayed on sitcoms now, I saw it on an episode of House on Fox.

So be it real or imagined, you have millions of parents who are scared to death their daughter is going to get pregnant and get an abortion, maybe even do it several times, and end up with serious health complications, and no one will ever bother to even tell them about it.

The question becomes, do the parents have the right to know, or don't they? Many parents are asking the government to reaffirm said rights. The issue is, what should we do. Do they or don't they have that right.

It doesn't matter how many are effected by a law in order to have the law made, ratified, and enforced....just that is happens is good enough. If you're gonna deny it happens, then we've got nothing to say to each other.

If you want to red-herringly deliberate the "whys" of life, fine....but this is about something very simple. Can a minor have ANY medical procedure without the knowledge or consent of a parent/guardian.....and the answer should ALWAYS be "NO".....unless you're in the business of the particular medical procedure, making $$$millions off of the government that pays for said procedure OR are against a parent having a say in what medical procedures are performed on their children.....THEN, the answer would be "yes".

...and concerning this very particular issue....I don't give a flying fuck "why" minors want to have a medical procedure without the knowledge or consent of her parent/guardian. It's very separate and irrelevant to THIS issue of CAN a minor have medical treatments without the knowledge or consent of a parent/guardian....or can a "clinic" perform a medical procedure on a minor without the consent of the parent.

The answer was "NO" every time I went to the hospital as a minor and it should ALWAYS be no, no matter what the medical procedure is.....emergencies are a different issue.