"I don't think I should have the baby because I'm 13, I'm in a shelter and I can't get a job"

It is kind of the same line of reasoning as "Judge So-And-So wanted Terri Schiavo D-E-D dead!"

I'm sure that's what Randall Terry would say.

A: 1 in 34,000
B: 1 in 1

plan 2:

A: 1 in 10,000
B: 1 in 10,000(?)

Kids, this is not even about the culture of life bullshit, when you get right down to it, this is about how it's impossible to write laws for every scenario under the sun. The situation is fucking ridiculous; it never should have happened to begin with; and this is why statute law is a failure, period, because the world is too complicated to rule out ad hoc solutions to shit like this.

Imagine the discussion when writing up the bill in the first place, if you really think this is about the "Culture Of Life" and "Jeb Bush:"

"Wait! Wait! WHAT IF, and I say WHAT IF, an underage girl, who is unable to work and possibly mentally unsound, escapes from a state home and goes missing for a month and comes back pregnant with a child, which at her young age is more dangerous to bring to term than to abort? Shouldn't we include some guidance, some leeway, to allow for a termination of the pregnancy in such a case?"

Generally, state legislatures don't go to such extent except when tax breaks and district partitioning are concerned, so I think that associating all of this with rabid pro-lifers is going a bit overboard.

apparently she has been denied the abortion due to a Florida statute that prohibits the state from consensting to abortion, sterlization or termination of life support

has been in existence in every state, I guarantee, for a long time. It has less to do with rabid pro-lifers, I also guarantee, than it does with the constitution, and the generally accepted view that it is incorrect for the state to impose any limits on human life and reproduction except in the case of convicted violent criminals.

I may be wrong, but to my mind the statue in question and the fundamental basis for it speaks more to the principles that keep us from forcing women who are interred in prison on lengthy sentences to submit to any form of birth control, even when they are allowed conjugal visitation, and are designed to avoid any legislation or act of jurisprudence which could lead our state down some kind of notional slippery slope that ends in THX-1138.

The state cannot legislatively decide to terminate the unborn. It is probably true that this problem would not exist if not for some pro-life sentiments regarding the definition of a human being under the law, though.

"Temporary"; okay?

It may also be that Jeb Bush's social services department is just being extremely diligent in following the letter of this law that just happens to exist, and that the ideology of abortion doesn't enter into the equation. It may be. Uh-huh. Yup.

x-post: The kid was already evaluted! She had counseling! She said she wanted to have an abortion. The state stopped her (at least temporarily).

and herein lies the problem not only w/ this scenario, but also w/ judicial and administrative decisionmaking in general. that is, statutes are often (but not always) vaguely worded or phrased, or for whatever other reason simply do not cover any and every situation. so these things end up in a court or an administrative agency, where a judge or administrative agent has to make a decision based upon these same vague, under-inclusive laws. it is PRECISELY here that the political right (NOT JUST the religious right!) goes into conniptions and starts screaming about "judicial tyranny" when the judges HAVE to make decisions (and decide in ways that the right-wing does not like).

you are correct. we really should look at this statute though.

at the very least, its constitutionality is suspect.

By 'vulnerable' you mean on her back then?

Shit, a girl who can express herself as well as she did likes to be on top.

Too far?

i imagine the judge rubbing his chin thoughtfully.