"I made a reference to 11 year olds in response to what Clark had said about 11 year olds getting pregnant."
Yeah, I wasn't accusing you of anything Kevin, I really meant it's sad that we're even bringing up 11 year old girls getting pregnant. It was in the article Dale posted.
"The remark about parental involvement was meant to say that a blanket remark about teens getting pregnant does not necessarily equate to a lack of parental involvement."
You're right. Teens get pregnant for all sorts of reasons, but teens that live with a parent or two should be getting some guidance and supervision from these people. If it's the right sort of guidance, outside of the ugly possibility of rape including incest, they should be instilling in these children a sense of why and how not to get pregnant. I mean this would seem to be a part of "Parenting 101". Sure, it's gonna happen kids will have sex, those hormones are raging after all, but as a parent you have the opportunity each day you spend with your child to nudge them in the right direction. Now the kids that don't have parents they can look to, well all bets are off there and we're talking about issues now that really have nothing to do with abortion.
"You say "A decent parent would be involved whether it was mandated by the state or not." How are you going to know enough to be involved if the child is able to do an end-around you? This makes no sense at all."
What kind of kids are we talking about here Kevin? A young girl with parents that love her and have talked these issues out with her, parents that are making the effort to be good parents...this young girl is going to turn her back on them and sneak out to have an abortion, a frightening and rather traumatizing procedure, just because she doesn't want them to know? Or are we talking about a child whose father will beat her within an inch of her life when he finds out? Or a young girl with a deeply religious family that has told her she'd be disowned and thrown out on the street if she did something like this? Kids in a bad situation, or subjected to bad parenting are more likely to do an "end around". What I'm getting at here is a child that knows they will get the support and assistance of her parents is a lot less likely to do an "end around" on them. The worlds not perfect and you've gotta do the best you can, but you can't spend every minute with your child and trusting them would make it more likely they'd trust you. That all makes sense to me. That's what I mean by a decent parent. A decent parent would be in touch with a child and would know, and it's more likely the child would tell them.
"And I disagree...this is classic 'Liberalness'."
Kevin, that's 100% taking a political approach to this issue. Liberals are not destroying the fabric of society here. Handing out condoms to kids and telling them to go have a party and "don't worry if you get knocked up little girl you can always sneak off and have an abortion and you're parents will never know". This ruling will not all of a sudden make little 14 year old Susie, who's been holding out on her 16 year old boyfriend pressuring her for sex, to suddenly give in and have an orgy because she sees this story on the 6 O'clock news. These kids are tied up in their own little worlds. Only politicians and abortion activists will get their panties in a bunch about this. Politicians like Jeb Bush because coming out on one side of it will make him more appealing to a certain group of voters. Abortion activists because this issue is what always gets their undies in a twist because "all these people are killing babies!".
The reality is that this will go by without the kids even paying attention. There won't be a sudden spike in teen sex and abortions because of it. The kids that were going to have sex are still going to have sex. The ones that end up pregnant are the ones that were going to end up pregnant. The pregnant ones that have parents living with them, well those parents blew it. This ruling by the court didn't just make parenting harder, it was always hard and in this world it always will be. It comes down to it's an emotionally charged issue that will provoke irrational drivel to pour out of peoples mouths.
Reg
