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Published on Wednesday, May 4, 2005 by The Progressive
by Matthew Rothschild
Jeb Bush's anti-abortion crusade reached a new low in the last few days when the Florida Department of Children and Families stepped in to try to prevent a thirteen year old girl in state custody from getting an abortion.
The agency made two arguments. First, that the girl was too young and immature to decide whether or not to have the baby. But did anyone consider the possibility that maybe she was too young and immature to have the baby and to raise it? Not that the department had taken much of an interest in the girl's well being before, since she had run away from state homes several times, including for more than a month recently, and the state did not bother to report her missing to the police. It was while she was out that she evidently got pregnant.
Second, the Florida Department of Children and Families cited a state statute that forbids it from consenting to "sterilization, abortion, or termination of life supports." According to the Palm Beach Post, however, girls in foster care have long been having abortions without state interference. But this time, the head of the department, Lucy Hadi, personally intervened.
Fortunately, a circuit court judge in Florida overruled Jeb's Department of Children and Families.
Judge Ronald Alvarez said the girl was competent to decide for herself and that such a decision is protected by the Florida constitution, as it should also be by Roe v. Wade, incidentally.
It's not clear whether Jeb is going to appeal the decision or whether the girl has had the abortion yet.
But the case is already becoming a new cause celebre for the right.
"Please fight for this baby's life, and do not surrender this unborn child to the hands of his would-be slayers under any circumstances," said Randall Terry, former leader of the Operation Rescue, in a letter to Governor Bush. (Somehow Terry has divined the sex of the fetus.)
A spokesperson for Florida Right to Life said, before the judge's ruling, "There is a rush to abort. To get rid of the evidence. Who impregnated her? You do not consent to sex at the age of 13."
If judges don't protect the rights of girls like this, and if Randall Terry, Right to Life, and Jeb Bush manage to prevail in other similar cases, we will be moving ever closer to the dystopia depicted by Margaret Atwood in Handmaid's Tale, where women are confined by the state to have babies.
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