Teen Spared For Two More Weeks From Parents Forcing Abortion

State   |   Kristen Walker   |   Jan 10, 2012   |   12:44PM   |   Washington, DC

A 14-year-old girl in Corpus Christi, TX, received a temporary restraining order on Dec. 21 to stop her family from forcing her to get an abortion. A state district judge appointed an attorney for the teen and extended the restraining order until Jan. 19, when a hearing will determine whether the order will remain in place for the duration of the girl’s pregnancy.

Thus far, the girl has been represented by Stephen Casey, an attorney for the Austin organization Texas Center for Defense of Life. Family members who appeared in court told the judge the teenage girl was mentally unstable and incapable of caring for a baby.

Casey claims the girl’s cousin is guilty of ”assaulting her by grabbing her by the neck, hitting her across the jaw and threatening to beat her if she did not get an abortion.”

There are several disturbing things about this story. First and foremost, that her family members are trying to force her to kill her baby. Second, that the judge in the case has only protected her from these people for two weeks. Third, that the “pro-choice” blogs are staying very quiet about the case. So much for choice!

If the girl were her suing her parents to get an abortion, what do you want to bet the anti-lifers would have this kid’s face on a T-shirt already? It’s not choice they are concerned with. If so, they would be standing up for this girl’s right to choose to keep her baby. They don’t care about her right to give birth. They care about her right to abort.

In searching for the pro-abortion response to this case in various blogs — they were remarkably silent — I found a post on Democratic Underground and started rifling through the comments. Here are a couple of the most stomach-turning:

From musette_sf:

they will relentlessly guilt her and brainwash her into self-loathing, and get a new lifetime customer for their phony baloney “post-abortive trauma survivor services” group.
So, to recap, they’ll brainwash her (already have) into keeping a pregnancy that would have better been terminated, for everyone concerned; they”ll steal the baby when the baby is born, and sell it to the highest bidder via the usual human trafficking criminals (aka the “adoption” mills); then, they’ll brainwash her into feeling guilty about it all, because without sufficient victim-blaming, she just might go forward to live a good life for herself without patriarchal misogynistic “approval”.

If all of that sounds crazy to you, that’s because it is. Based on her user name and the cuckoo-for-Cocoa-Puffs content of her post, I can safely assume that woman is from San Francisco. And before you go all nuts in the comments about how there are sane people in San Francisco, I know this already. But if you are a sane person living in San Francisco, you know good and well you are surrounded by lunatics.

Speaking of lunatics, the following is from a user called Wait_Wut:

This is a serious mess that is being used as a tool by the pro-forced motherhood crowd. Sickening. She’s a child and needs help, not some self-righteous religious zealots telling her that God will provide. He won’t. And, they won’t, either. Once that baby is born, they’ll be on the side that wants to take away her babies right to eat, get an education and live in a heated home with a damned refrigerator.

I assume by “take away her babies right to eat, get an education,” etc., he is referring to people who want to cut government spending. I am one of those people, and of course the first thing I think of when I think of government spending is keeping babies from eating.

I also like the reference to the pro-life movement as “pro-forced motherhood.” This is one of my favorites. The “being forced to give birth” thing. It’s silly enough in most cases, when we’re talking about a woman who had sex with a human man and then acts as though pro-lifers sneaked into her house at night and inseminated her with Republican seed. It’s even more ridiculous to bring up in this case, when the girl wants to keep her baby.

Here’s another one you’ll love from Lance_Boyle:

As long as her family can legally disown her and any financial obligation to her, let her choose. If her choice can legally stick her family with an unwanted burden then they should have a say, too.

How about the simple fact that it was a failure on the part of the parents that this child got pregnant in the first place? Whether it was due to a lack of education, moral guidance, or supervision, their barely post-pubescent daughter got pregnant on their watch. It is arguable that they may be responsible for her and her child. That does not, however, give them the right to force her to kill her baby.

This is the obvious (to anybody with a brain, anyway) end result of a society that insists on sexualizing the very young. We expose children to a media-saturated culture in which even the “family” shows are laissez-faire about premarital sex, act appalled when they get pregnant, and then say they have no choice but to abort because they aren’t responsible enough to parent.

Well, you should have thought about that when you were shoving “Glee” episodes, Beyonce videos, and condoms in your kid’s face.

I don’t know the mental state of this girl, but I do know that she is doing the most responsible thing she could possibly do at this moment, and the most healthy, maternal thing imaginable: protecting her child from people who are trying to kill it.

We can all hope, if only for the obvious lack of familial support, that she chooses adoption for her child. But even if she doesn’t, she will at least have given her baby a chance at life.

Meanwhile, maybe it’s time we think about the messages we send our children. A 14-year-old is no more ready to have an abortion than she is to get pregnant or have sex in the first place. And the bored, postmodern response of “Oh, they’re gonna do it anyway” doesn’t cut it. People are going to do lots of things — murder, rape, steal cars, watch “Jersey Shore.” That doesn’t mean we encourage it, make it easier for them, or even tolerate it.

“They’re gonna do it anyway” is simply a non-argument. There was a time when a 14-year-old girl having sex would have been completely unacceptable. And it happened a lot less. Why? Because it was completely unacceptable.

People are always going to fail to live up to moral standards. That doesn’t mean we stop having them.

The truth is, the best advice to give a 14-year-old about sex is: “Keep it in your pants, or else.” I know all the words for this: antiquated, Paleozoic, silly, unrealistic! It is also 100% effective. Abstinence is the only proven cure for teenage abortions.

Meanwhile, let’s all hope the court does the right thing and protects this girl and her baby.

LifeNews.com Note: Kristen Walker is Vice President of New Wave Feminists.This post originally appeared at the Live Action blog and is reprinted with permission.