When a teen sues her parents to fight for her unborn baby’s right to live, the topic of forced abortion becomes of national interest. Can a 16-year-old girl be expected to kill her unborn child against her will? Can any woman be forced to kill her unborn child against her will? The teenager who is suing her parents over her baby’s right to live is 16 years old and two months pregnant, reports Houston’s KPRC on Feb. 12, 2013,
“The teen is two months pregnant and is represented by lawyers with the Texas Center for Defense of Life. A judge granted a temporary restraining order to save the baby's life.”
While the teen is suing her parents, the restraining order was issued by the judge because the teen’s mom allegedly met with the paternal grandparents in a bar to discuss slipping an abortion pill into the teen’s drink or food.
In addition to her mother and grandparents, the 16-year-old teen told the judge that her father “was going to take her to have an abortion and that the decision was his, end of story." It sounds like a father who has more control issues than concern for his daughter.
So who has the right to make a life or death decision for an unborn baby?
Most people would agree that the fact that the teenager who is suing her parents is only 16 years old should not give her parents the right to kill.
Most people would also agree that having the kind of parents that need to be taken to court and sued, do not really deserve to be called parents. Parents are supposed to support their daughter, not force her to kill an unborn child.
Teenagers have the right to leave school and the right to have an abortion at the age of 16 but they do not have the right to make a pro-choice decision?
According to the 16-year-old teen’s attorney, Stephen Casey, "What Roe established is minors have the choice” and that the 16-year-old teen is legally protected. “They cannot force her to have an abortion.”
Since the Supreme Court case of Roe versus Wade in 1973, the national debate over abortion rights has reshaped national politics and divided many grassroots organizations in the United States into pro-choice and pro-life camps.
In the case of Roe versus Wade, the United States Supreme Court made a landmark decision that under the 14th Amendment to the American Constitution, a woman has the right to have an abortion but that the right to have an abortion has to be balanced against a woman’s right for her own health and the health of her baby.
Any woman who has ever had to face a “forced abortion” not because of pressure by parents or by anyone else but because of health and survival issues for the mother and the baby, knows about the life-long devastating effects that an abortion has.
The fact that this 16-year-old girl has the courage to sue her parents for her own and her baby’s right to live certainly shows that she is not only mature enough to be a mother but also mature enough to be emancipated.
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