Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington has triggered a dispute over parental rights when it arranged for an abortion of a teenage girl during school hours without notifying her parents. While the parents signed a consent form to allow her to use the clinic, they never agreed that such trips to the nurse would include an abortion.
The school put the teenager in a taxi and arranged for the abortion at a site another location.
T.J. Cosgrove of the King County Health Department noted that “[a]t any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy.”
I have long opposed such a sweeping rule and denial of parental rights. In some states a school needs parental permission to give a girl an aspirin but not an abortion. For a prior column, click here. While I support the right of a teenager to seek a court exception for parental notification, I believe parents have a right to be informed of such a procedure at a minimum.
For the full story, click here.
In the south, most restaurants serve both sweet and unsweetened.
Turley, why did you remove Sick and Tired’s post? I thought it was rational and well thought out. Are you secretly one of the posters whose logic she eviscerated?
You should all be happy to know this libertarian is leaving.
“That your comments are allowed to stand demonstrates the fairness of this blawg.”
Ha. What does it demonstrate now?
Mr. Turley,
Where is my post? Was my logic creating too conservative an atmosphere on this blog?
Thanks AY, honoured to be in good company 🙂
Canadian Eh,
Welcome to the club, Club Turley or just plain Clubbing.
FFLEO & AY,
I’ll third that statement even though I was ( for the first time on here….actually ever ) personally attacked in the post.
Former Federal LEO 1, March 25, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Sick and Tired,
That your comments are allowed to stand demonstrates the fairness of this blawg.
DITTO, DITTO, DITTO………
And here I thought this thread was going to be bereft of actual comedy.
Sick and Tired,
That your comments are allowed to stand demonstrates the fairness of this blawg.
reasonableman:
do you think Ballard will commission a “Ballad of the Beaver” to recognize this special occasion?
As the sign said “Beaver Power”, apparently not enough to prevent pregnancy.
ouch
This high school has a couple choice slogans on it’s website “Remember, it’s always great to be a Beaver!” and “Home of the Beavers” lol They are kind of fitting given what they will be known for now.
HooYa! Another cost base analysis landing squarely in the + column for outsourcing!
Kjersten Thorsen,
Interesting info … thanks
K,
First of all, I wonder how many people have really ever read this.
Ballard High School Vision Statement:
•All students will develop positive relationships with adults and students at Ballard High School through academic, extracurricular, and social opportunities.
•All students will receive support – academic, social, cultural – in order to take on the challenges they will face, including college, career, and other endeavors.
•All students and families will join with Ballard High School to engage as partners in supporting and strengthening the school and greater community.
•All students will develop individual strengths, achieve academic excellence, and be recognized for their successes.
I believe that all of the above visions were dashed when B.H.S. decided to turn their authority over to a school clinic run by Swedish Medical Center. The school officials are well able to assert that the matter of their 15-year old student being sent in a taxi for an abortion without parental consent is something over which they had to control.
This is a very serious matter with far-reaching consequences. Hopefully, the adults involved in the situation will be able to muster themselves to take a serious look at what they have done and make needed changes in order to prevent this type of tragedy from happening with frequency in the future.
oops, add this to above …
how will she ever get the strength to open her mouth to speak to you, should the need arise?
Wow…this sure got hot overnight….
“If she opened her legs to get pregnant, she can open ‘em again for the delivery.”
That sounds pretty durn harsh,
[getting pregnant was probably not the ‘why’ of her actions.]
If your passions are so loud here, simply discussing the possibility of your child being in this situation…how will she ever get the strength to open her mouth to speak to you?
Lady Liberty:
“Furthermore, I don’t know a single person whose baby had a botched circumcision–maybe that’s a side-effect of you guys socializing medicine (the competent docs go elsewhere). Hey, didn’t you guys Prime Minister come to the U.S. for treatment? LOL.”
Don’t be so hard on our northern neighbors, it’s cold up there so wouldnt you go to Florida in the middle of winter for a by-pass on the beach?
John:
I hope you’re not conflating parental rights with the biological nonsense of the anti-abortion crowd. A 150 cell zygote is not an “unborn child,” any more than an acorn is an oak tree. At some point during gestation you may have a point that the state has an interest in intervening, but early stage pregnancies are more likely to be aborted by natural processes than deliberate ones. I want to avoid the fiery passion (not to mention the tortured logic) of those like, Lady Liberty, who see facts through the cloudy prism of their own religiosity. BTW, I applaud your devotion to your kids, but as we can see from the posts here not every parent has their child’s best interest at heart and the overriding of parental consent in these cases is sometimes warranted by the facts.