[quote=FormerSanDiegan]The abortion issue is extremely polarizing. Prop 4 was a lightning rod for this issue.
Putting aside the specifics of prop 4 for the moment …
I want to know why our children cannot go on a field trip without permission, but can elect to have one or more medical procedures performed on them.
Would someone please tell me what medical procedures our minor children can have performed on them without parental consent under current law ?
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The issue you run into here is liability. I personally walked home from school everyday cause my parents worked. The school made my parents sign a release for me to walk off campus grounds every 3 months. It was liability that made them do that, not my ability to walk home or make a decision changing every 12 weeks or so. If something had happened, they wanted a recient release of liability.
Nobody questions the inability of a 17 year old to know right from wrong in a murder trial, why do we think they cant decide if they want to go to the museum, and how to do it safely? We trust 16 year olds on the roads, yet they cant go on a field trip to the beach with friends and chaperones without parental consent? 18 year olds die in our defence in the military but we wont let them buy a beer? I was 18 when I graduated from High School, and my parents still had to sign a waiver for gradnight at school.
The law says that people are responsible for what happens, and that is why we have consent forms and notification requirements. The law also currently says that doctors and schools are not responisble for non-notification abortions, to protect those that need this annamosity to survive, and so it still happens. If laws stopped putting liablity on schools for field trips, they would stop requiring parents to sign.
Our system is riddeled with inefficent age limits and contradictions. No magical fairy visits us at midnight on the 18th annaversary of the day of our birth giving us wisdom and insight, but our Government treats it as such. Does it make sense? No. Will it change? No. Does it mean that we should inact laws that will help push the most vulnerable in our society to take risks that may end up costing them their lives? No. Each one of these age limits needs to be tested on their own merits, not lumped together.
