By Jedmunds
Jumping off of Neil's post on parental consent laws below, which I think is essentially correct. Briefly, a child needs her parents’ permission to get a tattoo, because she doesn’t have a fundamental right to a tattoo. It’s a choice, if postponed, that isn’t going to irreparably damage the child. And before you go around giving some kid over the counter medications, you should check with her parents first, for the child’s protection with respect to adverse affects or any number of imaginable dangers. But mummy and daddy do not get to decide whether or not their daughter should spend nine-months undergoing a pregnancy and dealing with all of the awesome responsibilities that go with giving birth. Just as the government does not get to decide this for adults, mothers don’t get to decide it for their daughters. We can wring our hands as excessively as we want about it, but there’s really no better alternative.
But I think we focus too much on the word “consent,” in whatare really parental notification laws. I, until very recently, was uniformly and absolutely opposed to parentalnotification laws because I felt it quite likely that it placed an undue burdenon at least some girls' right to exercise her right to autonomy over her ownbody. I'm not so sure anymore. I think that issue is still very much in playfor a large number of young girls facing pregnancy. But I now think there may be other issues toconsider as well when we allow children to get abortions without their parentsknowledge, such as the case of the hypothetical 13 year old molested by thefather of the children she baby-sits. How easy is it for this man, where that 13 year old can get an abortionwithout parental notice, to further manipulate the girl and cover hiscrimes?
