Life-and-death issues

[opebo]

"Yes" or "No" to each of the following practices staying legal / being legalized, etc.:

Euthanasia:  YES
Human cloning:  YES
Death penalty for juveniles:  NO
Death penalty for retarded:  NO
Death penalty for others:  NO
Partial-birth abortion:  YES
Parental consent for abortion:  NO
Parental notification for abortion:  NO
Abortion for rape and incest:  YES
Embryo abortion:  YES
Fetus abortion:  YES
Infanticide:  NO
"Morning after" pill:  YES
Withdraw troops from Afghanistan:  YES
Withdraw troops from Iraq:  YES
Lynching:  NO
House bombing:  NO

[opebo]

That parental notification law seems like it would have universal support.  I'm not sure why it doesn't.  I don't tell any woman or man how to raise their kids, they don't tell me how to raise mine. 

I should think our objection to parental notification should be obvious - to protect the young woman from her family.  The great majority of parents in America would be somewhat abusive in a situation like this - recriminations, verbal abuse, character assassination, dimunition of self-esteem, and in many cases physical beatings would be the inevitable result.  It might even reach the disasterous extreme of preventing the abortion from taking place. 

No, to my mind the parent is basically a tyrant, and is as often, or more often, the enemy of youth than the benefactor.  I should like to protect the young woman from having to deal with the parents in this situation - simply put, if they were decent, non-abusive, open-minded, liberal parents, she would've already informed them of her own volition!

[opebo]

You seem to want it both ways here.  You have stated in the past that the government is overregulating us.  Fantastic.  I'm with you there.  But now that overt regulation serves your purpose, you suddenly support it.  As I said, those who support this law clearly haven't thought it through.

Not at all, you have it backwards - requiring parental notification is the regulatory position, while leaving young women and their doctors free to simply abort at will is the 'laissez-faire' position. 

[opebo]

You seem to want it both ways here.  You have stated in the past that the government is overregulating us.  Fantastic.  I'm with you there.  But now that overt regulation serves your purpose, you suddenly support it.  As I said, those who support this law clearly haven't thought it through.

Not at all, you have it backwards - requiring parental notification is the regulatory position, while leaving young women and their doctors free to simply abort at will is the 'laissez-faire' position. 

superficially, good point.  however, the reasoning behind your explanation was one of protectionism, apparently.  And there's another problem, once again it hinges on the declaration that minors are full citizens.  In this view, say my kid comes over to your house and takes a big dump on your balcony and breaks all your windows.  Just for spite.  Most courts have held that I shall be held legally responsible for those damages.  By your reasoning, if we follow it through to its conclusion, you can collect no damages because a small child has no money. 

I disagree - there is no need to grant the minor full citizenship in order to provide them some compromise level of rights and protections.  I think we can judge that in certain areas it is reasonable to protect the individual rights of a 'child' (after all we're talking about post-pubescents here, not  9 year olds), and in other cases allow the young person some lower level of responsiblity.  For me the main issue is the near absolute, tyrannical power we allow parents over their children - in fact the very idea of child-abuse is fairly new.  In the case of the child damaging property, it is reasonable to hold the parent responsible, or to take the child away if the parent is incapable of controlling the child.  However in the case of abortion, it seems to me the potential damage from requiring parental notification and consent is so much greater than any potential benefit.  The only possible benefit I can see is that the more mature person may choose the doctor more carefully - we can deal with that problem easily enough (and I would argue already have) through professional regulation and malpractice lawsuits.