The highest court in Nebraska has decided that a 16-year-old in foster care must carry her unintended pregnancy to term because she hasn’t proven that she’s “sufficiently mature and well informed” enough to choose to have an abortion. The teen sought to bypass the state’s parental consent law because her foster parents are very religious, and she worried that she would lose her place in their home if she told them she wanted to end her pregnancy.
Not mature enough to have an abortion, but mature enough to raise a kid in a foster home. Have no fear, though, if the Republicans get their way in a grand bargain, I’m sure they won’t cut all the assistance this 16 year old unwed mother in a foster home needs.
Roger Moore
I’m sure the real goal is to have her be a convenient baby factory for an infertile rich couple.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: But Ellen Page was so cute in that movie.
Trollhattan
At last, a weary nation’s new post sequester had ended.
scav
Well, that and Nebraska must have been feeling left in the dust in the crazy race. Or, they could see babies as a viable supplement crop to wheat and corn.
Tom Levenson
There is no compromise with this kind of sh*t. That is all.
David Koch
This is Miley Cyrus’s fault.
That, and video games.
Anoniminous
I blame Obama.
Baud
With those qualifications, she should run for Congress as a Republican.
MomSense
This is horrifying. To think, Republicans are terrified of fantasies about government takeover of healthcare but the state is literally assuming control over this poor girl’s body.
Baud
@MomSense:
Birth panels!
LanceThruster
Oh for f#ck’s sake!
Jeebus, protect me from your followers.
Wally Ballou
@Roger Moore: How do you know she’s white?
MomSense
@Baud:
Birth panels!! That’s it!
Villago Delenda Est
This is quite frankly insane.
jake the snake
The Cthulhu Cult was less dangerous than the right wing in this country, and a hell of lot less delusional.
Jerzy Russian
Jesus Hussein Christ. Green Balloons already! Can’t we see what Steve, Lily, and/or Rosie are up to?
Ben Franklin
They like the idea because it creates more ‘takers’ in the social welfare sphere. Another chance to kill that baby in it’s crib.
WereBear
The poor kid. She’s got no one in her corner, and no one who loves her.
Sadly, a lot of teens cannot bear to give up the baby, especially those short on love, but then they don’t get the support they need to raise them, either. So they go into foster care of their own as emotionally damaged toddlers.
So sick, to deliberately destroy lives in the name of morality.
shelly
aaaaaahhhhhh, nail fungus ad is back!
Josie
@Roger Moore: This is exactly what is intended. I have often thought that this whole no abortions and no contraceptives movement is about making poor women bear babies they can’t afford in order to have adoption possibilities for wealthier women who don’t want to ruin their figures, etc. I know I sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I can’t help thinking that has something to do with it. Hmmm – seems like someone wrote a book about that at one point.
Baud
@shelly:
Not surprising. We’ve been spending a lot of time talking about Boehner.
El Cid
If I didn’t know these people already, I’d be less unwilling to sy “Wait–what?”
RaflW
When I saw the post title, I was hoping you’d noticed the rather stunning little scandal erupting in Minnesota involving the Minneapolis-St Paul Archdiocese.
Seems there’s missing kiddie porn, a tendency (surprise!) to let priests keep being priests after doing really creepy things, and assorted extensions of a decades-long tragedy involving children and men with lots of power and no morals.
sharl
It is in keeping with the commandments of our Glorious Lord and Prince of Peace that this wayward slut be shamed and made to live in misery on this earth – for her own good – before her soul is lovingly consigned to the Fiery Lake of Eternal Damnation.
Glory!
Citizen Alan
There was a case in Mississippi back when I clerking that was even more disgusting than this. A 16-year-old girl was pregnant and wanted an abortion. Her parents were dead and the grandmother who raised her had never bothered to take the legal step to be made her guardian. She sought an abortion and her grandmother supported her efforts, but the local chancellor, a preening theocratic asshole, decided that she was “too immature” for an abortion. It went all the way to the state supreme court which affirmed the chancellor on procedural grounds. I was disgusted then and I’m disgusted today, twelve years later.
Darkrose
The story linked on LGM included this bit:
Villago Delenda Est
@Josie:
I think that is indeed part of it. Especially for white teens who are giving birth to pure white babies that the rich can raise as their own offspring, because they’re infertile or they don’t want to deal with 9 months of pregnancy, or whatever.
But the slut shaming aspect is also very important. The sluts need to be punished, and make sure that when the baby comes out, the incubator gets no pain relief. Bitch needs to suffer.
Villago Delenda Est
@RaflW:
The missing kiddie porn might identify victims, who might identify the criminal vermin that molested them, and we certainly can’t have that.
The Book of Dolan is all about this, as is the Book of Law.
Tommy
@Citizen Alan: Wow. Wow. I have a penis and not a uteruses. I tend to defer to women on how they care for their vagina or uteruses. That has always worked out well for me.
esc
@Roger Moore: I remember reading years ago about a high achieving high schooler who went on down to her local (Christian, of course) adoption agency. They couldn’t have been more thrilled that this smart, pretty cheerleader wanted to give up the baby she had made with her equally smart, athletic boyfriend.
And then they found out he was black, which put the brakes on the whole thing, at least with that agency.
Gex
Wasn’t this the state that had screwed up the law allowing parents to drop off kids they don’t want so badly that a child this age could have just been surrendered to the state? It’s strange this age can be old enough to be a mother AND young enough to be surrendered like an infant.
esc
@Roger Moore: I remember reading years ago about a high schooler who went on down to her local (Christian, of course) adoption agency. They couldn’t have been more thrilled that this smart, pretty cheerleader wanted to give up the baby she had made with her equally smart, athletic boyfriend.
And then they found out he was black, which put the brakes on the whole thing, at least with that agency.
Yatsuno
@Gex: I thought that was South Dakota. I’m not sure now and I’m feeling too lazy to Google.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Where would you like your internets delivered?
Gex
@Yatsuno: Nope, it was Nebraska.
lamh36
IDIOTS!
Republicans to block quick passage of back-pay bill
Yatsuno
@Gex: Most of the Midwest seems rather fucked up in one way or another. I’m waiting for Wisconsin to get over its teabagger stupidity and rejoin Minnesota in sanity territory.
@lamh36: Because of course they will. They are exactly who they thought they were.
PhoenixRising
The judge whose so-called judgment was affirmed? Used to was the lawyer for Operation Rescue.
Back before this now-17-year-old young woman was born, left in charge of her younger sibs & somehow got herself knocked up while in foster care. With religious nut jobs who wouldn’t allow her to assert her right to bodily autonomy even if they were allowed to.
Which goes to show us liberal do-gooders. Step up and get licensed to do foster care–right now it’s whackos only.
Punchy
I hope someone’s been arrested for statutory rape.
Roger Moore
@lamh36:
Shorter Senate Republicans: We need a chance to show what big assholes we are.
piratedan
@Roger Moore: well they could have chosen to kick some Nuns but the Catholic Church said that they were all on assignment
MomSense
@Baud:
Is it wrong for me to wish Boehner would get nail fungus as punishment for dragging the whole country through all of this?
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
It may not be wrong to wish it, but it is definitely wrong to mention the vile disease here where it may trigger ads.
Chris
@Darkrose:
There needs to be some kind of underground railroad (doesn’t even really need to be “underground” much) fund for girls to avail themselves of if they’re in this situation to get them to another part of the country, or even Canada, if need be. I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be enough donors. Plenty of people are as sickened by this as we are.
Chris
@Josie:
No, I just think you’re overthinking it. Making life as painful as possible for the slut in every possible way is the ends in itself. What happens to the baby after it’s born is immaterial. It may very well be that there’s a pool of rich people waiting to adopt poor people’s kids who’re using this situation to their advantage, but the situation would still exist even if there wasn’t.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
The kid should have thought about this before she fucked in Nebraska.
Baud
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
What the hell else is there to do in Nebraska?
GxB
@Yatsuno: Oh you’ll be waiting a loooog time… This place is barely recognizable as the home of Fighting Bob and Russ Feingold. I don’t own a TV but my folks say the airwaves are clogged with “Walker is wonderful!” themed commercials blasting at all hours, and it is apparently working quite well. Throw in the hopeless gerrymandering and we are at best deep maroonish-purple (tending to maroon in more ways than one) for at least the next decade.
WereBear
Being raised by “strict religious” is Shackleton on the ice floe.
There is no shelter or warmth or care. There’s only increasing, impossible, demands which must be met lest you are cast out on the street.
Anne Laurie
@Wally Ballou:
It’s Nebraska, and a “good, Christian” foster family. Odds are in favor.
gelfling545
The daughter of a friend got pregnant way too young & bought the “choose life” propaganda. In the (Catholic) hospital while in labor & after delivery she was subjected to a long line of medical people pressuring her to raise the baby her own 16 year old self & going on about how could you give up your own baby, la, la, la until her mother finally raised hell, after which she was moved to a remote part of the ward & ignored until she was discharged. Nothing pleases them unless they can make you really suffer.
Chris
@gelfling545:
The more I read about shit like this, the more that scene from Airplane appeals to me.
fuckwit
@MomSense: That’s exactly it!! They’re terrified of losing their control over poor girls’ bodies, and handing that control to… the girls themselves, which is what the government would do.
fuckwit
@lamh36: GENERAL FUCKING STRIKE.
That’s what needs to happen. The workers… ALL WORKERS… all over the country, need to come together, and just refuse to go to work. Federal, state, city, public sector, private sector, retail, white collar, everything.
Just FUCKING GO ON STRIKE UNTIL THE FUCKING REPUBLICAN CONGRESS DOES THEIR FUCKING JOBS.
What was it the Russians said of the Soviet Union — “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”?– well, it’s time for that now, here.
fuckwit
@Baud: But the few times I’ve tried to spell it without the h and without the extra e, FYWP has thrown it into moderation.
Roxy
@Josie:
James Tiptree Junior wrote a short sci-fi story about abortions being illegal and what it has done to society.
Suzanne
@Josie: I don’t think it’s about body image, but there are certainly more infertile rich white people than there are healthy adoptable infants. Demand needs supply.
On a related note, the Baby Veronica case makes me want to hurl.
Wally Ballou
@Villago Delenda Est: Then, too, a woman with no control over her fertility is less likely to be picky over who (or whether) she marries, or get highfalutin notions about pursuing an education or career, or otherwise push back against God-given patriarchal social order.
johnny aquitard
@Josie: They have to be white babies. Asian babies are distant runner up, only if they’re not wealthy enough to pay a poor white girl to have one for them.
PurpleGirl
@Chris: I wish I could remember the name of the group that wanted members to buy and keep on hand the morning-after pill for emergencies. I lost track of them, so I don’t know if they still exist or if they have expanded to the types of aid they can/will give.
nineone
Waitasec, there’s a grand bargain?
gnomedad
@Josie:
I rather doubt this, but I’m tempted to say that they should loudly and frequently be accused of it anyway, in order to divert some of their energy into attempts to deny it.
Suzanne
@johnny aquitard: Actually, all the baby-hungry infertiles I know (and I know a lot) are okay with having a baby of any race. Angelina Jolie made it okay. However, now that increases the demand for international adoption, which can result in human trafficking in countries that have even more corrupt, shady systems than we do.
This is the reason why, even though I think adoption can be a wonderful thing, that there really isn’t any way to ethically participate in that system.
swbarnes2
I think it’s more about people thinking that sex, or any kind of pleasure, (as well as food, housing, healthcare, education clean water, etc) are too good for most people. So if one of those inferiors takes a pleasure they aren’t entitled to, it’s only just that they suffer for it.
kc
What the FUCK?
John PM
@Villago Delenda Est: I think irony has finally died.