Parents Agree Not to Force Their Daughter to Have an Abortion

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Feb 19, 2013   |   1:09PM   |   Houston, TX

After a legal battle that saw a teenager sue her parents in court to prevent them from pressuring her into having an abortion, a Houston, Texas girl’s parents have relented and decided not to press her to abort.

Attorneys with The Center for Defense of Life have suit on behalf of the 16-year-old expectant mom who says her parents are trying to force her to have an abortion of a baby she wants to keep. The teenager is two months pregnant and asking a judge to stop her parents from making her have an abortion by coercing her with verbal and physical threats and by harassment.

The pro-life attorneys representing her obtained a temporary restraining order from the 215th District Court of Harris County, Texas. This court order prohibits the parents of their 16-year-old client from coercing her to have an abortion against her will.

Now, new reports indicate an agreement has been reached:

An agreement was made in family court on Monday and the girl’s parents cannot force her to abort her pregnancy.

The lawsuit that was filed, details a verbal threat the parent’s made toward their daughter. It claimed the girl’s mother suggested to family members “she might slip the teen an abortion pill through deception.”

The boyfriend’s parents stepped in to help. They eventually contacted the Texas Center for Defensive Life, who represented the girl in court.

The father of the child, Evan Madison, is relieved by the outcome.

Madison said it was very important to fight for his baby

“My father wasn’t in my life, and I wasn’t going to be him,” said Madison. “I still today do not know him.”

In court on Monday, attorney’s cited a law that states a person, regardless of their age, cannot be forced to have an abortion.

The teen couple says they plan to marry soon.

“This case stand for the principle that Roe v. Wade and the so-called ‘right to choose’ includes the right to choose life,” said TCDL President Greg Terra.

He told LifeNews, “the United States Supreme Court in Bellotti v. Baird (443 U.S. 622, 1979) held that a teenage girl has the absolute legal right to make her own reproductive choices, including the right to not to have an abortion, regardless of what her parents want her to do; so if a Texas teenage girl chooses life we will stand with her in court in support of that choice.”

“No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life–especially one that belongs to someone else–is worthless. The right not to have an abortion is protected by law, and this right is not relinquished just because someone else considers the child to be an unwanted burden,” added TCDL Chief Counsel Stephen Casey.

In the lawsuit, the teen claims her mom “…invited the paternal grandparents to a bar for further discussion, where she suggested that she might slip [the teen] an abortion pill through deception.”

On a different occasion, the pregnant teen claims her dad told her “he was going to take her to have an abortion and that the decision was his, end of story.” The girl claims her parents already removed her phone, kept her from school and took her car as punishment for failing to get an abortion.

The father claims the claims are false and says he thinks someone put the teenager up to the lawsuit.

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This isn’t the first time a Texas teenager fought her parents over pressure to have an abortion.

Last year, a 14-year-old girl in Corpus Christi, TX, received a temporary restraining order 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.

Stephen Casey said 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.”