Today’s Lady News: A Lawsuit Is Filed In Illinois Over Parental Notification Law For Abortions
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman
Filed in:
news
4:45PM, Wednesday October 21st 2009
A Chicago doctor and a women’s health clinic have filed a lawsuit in Illinois over a “parental notification law.” If the law goes into effect on Nov. 3, it would require a doctor to tell the parents before performing an abortion on girls under age 18. Girls can bypass notifying their parents by going before a judge, but the judge has 48 hours to rule. Parental notification also isn’t required in the case of a medical emergency or if the girl declares in writing that she is the victim of sexual abuse. [Chicago Tribune]
School officials in Huntington Beach, California read aloud the child rape scene in Maya Angelou‘s autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, by way of encouraging the city council members to ban it. Book banning? In California? In 2009? Seriously? [Jezebel]
The singer John Mayer made a joke about “forcefully sodomizing” a New York magazine editor. The blog Feministing voiced their disapproval, Photoshop-style. [NYmag.com, Feministing]
The enforcement of an awful Oklahoma law set to begin on Nov. 1, which would require physicians to provide detailed information online about women who have had abortions, has been delayed until Dec. 4, due to a judge’s temporary restraining order. Pro-choice critics say the info posted online (race, education level, etc.) could easily identify a woman who lives in a small town. [Ms. Magazine]
An Arizona court ruled that a county sheriff cannot require female inmates to pre-pay $300-$600 for the cost of transportation and security when she seeks an abortion. The ACLU had argued this presented an obstacle to the women. [Ms. Magazine]
Almost 100,000 Italian women have signed a petition saying they were offended when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told female politician Rosy Bindi that she was “more beautiful than intelligent.” [BBC] In the grand tradition of jerks worldwide, Berlusconi told everyone to chill out because he was just kidding and then asked Bindi to make him a sandwich.
Women in Kuwait are finally now allowed to get a passport without their husbands’ permission, reversing a 1962 law which required hubbys’ signatures. Depressing. [London Guardian UK]
Maine voters will decide on Nov. 3 whether or not to repeal a same-sex marriage law which redefines marriage as “the legally recognized union of two people” regardless of their gender. The L.A. Times says the Maine residents who oppose gay marriage are taking a page from California’s Proposition 8 battle. [L.A. Times]
Dr. Luis Zayas, a psychologist at Washington University, has suggested that a young Latina woman’s relationship with her mother is linked to the likelihood the girl will commit suicide. He concluded this after studying 200 NYC-based Latinas over the course of five years. The Latino blog Guanabee is not buying it. [Guanabee]
Tags: feminism, todays lady news, abortion, reproductive rights, sexual abuse, parental notification, teenager abortion
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
Secret Story Time
wrote on October 22 2009 @ 12:29 am: [report]
I think the parents should be notified if the girl is under 18. They should have the opportunity to talk over things with her, they know her better than anyone else most of the time.
secretia
qnzmami718
wrote on October 22 2009 @ 07:32 am: [report]
i read the article for CNN by Dr. Luis Zayas and i just want to say that as a latina women i am deeply offended by it and i think that Zayas is a piece of sh*t! that whole dam article gives latinas everyhwere a bad freakin name! i was so PO-ed wen i read it tht i called my cousin screaming about what a f*ckin idiot that guy is! my favorite part: how the featured latina was depressed and wanted to kill herself before finding the love of her life/baby daddy at the oh so mature age of 14! so she has a baby at 15 with this guy and poof, happily ever after! W-T-F! this just plays to the idea that all latinas are little hoes with like 5 babies living on wellfare! well you kno what? F*CK YOU ZAYAS you ignorant piece of sh*t!
mokti
wrote on October 22 2009 @ 10:18 am: [report]
As a book lover and seller, I’m against the banning of ANY book. Even those I find detestable (not the case here as “Caged Bird” just made me sad… though I haven’t read it in a decade or two).
Jessica Wakeman
wrote on October 22 2009 @ 05:37 pm: [report]
@Secret Story Time
I think it’s the girl/woman’s body no matter what age she is and she should make decisions for herself.
Alexa
wrote on October 23 2009 @ 12:30 am: [report]
I agree 100% with Jessica. The girl is the one who has to be pregnant, not the parents. It’s her body, her choice, period. While I do agree that she should usually discuss it with them, that decision belongs to her and her alone.
MuchoMacho
wrote on October 23 2009 @ 09:00 am: [report]
this is probably going to be fairly unpopular with the ladies on this ladies site… but i didnt know jack when i was 15, so i dont imagine many girls do either. 15 year old girls are still extremely immature. i am pro-choice and pretty open-minded about most things, but i think the parents should be involved in a decision like this.
reginka
wrote on October 25 2009 @ 10:16 am: [report]
At 21 I would be terrified of my parents finding out that I was pregnant, and I can imagine the fear a 15 year old would go through; but that girl is still a minor.
You need an adult’s signature to get your ears pierced at Claire’s, and at my high school, nurses weren’t allowed to dispense Advil unless there was a parental note on file allowing it. I think it’s totally reasonable that a parent should be notified if their minor child is undergoing a surgical procedure or given drugs that they need a prescription for.
Maybe this is too much of a devil’s advocate point to make, but if it’s acceptable for me to abort my child, shouldn’t it also be acceptable for me to know or sign off on them receiving serious drugs from a doctor?
Tsubasa
wrote on October 30 2009 @ 03:01 am: [report]
What would happen when there must be notification to the parents their child wants an abortion? The girl might have made a mistake or got into a situation and she is now pregnant. At 15 years old she can probably not handle this even her body would take it hard. But then her parents are told this and say they are christian or strictly pro-life and forbid it. So they will force the child to go through pregnancy and child birth and then have this unwanted baby? Seriously, even at that young an age she should have control over her own body. If no matter what they are going to have an abortion then there is no point getting anyone else involved. Everyone has a different relationship with there parents.
Ariandre
wrote on November 2 2009 @ 07:27 pm: [report]
Re: Parental notification
I guess I am on the fence about parental notification. I think that if a child who finds herself pregnant feels unable to tell her parents about the pregnancy or about wanting an abortion but feels strong enough about having an abortion is placed in the position of either having the state notify her parents or finding some other means of obtaining the abortion (and potentially killing herself in the process) I would prefer that the parents not have to be notified.
I personally would want to know if my child felt the need to abort her baby but I also would like to feel that my child and I have a relationship that we can talk about sex, relationships and potential pregnancies before they happen. We talk to our kids about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, why don’t more people talk to their kids about sex and pregnancy?