Friday, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Hamilton County Common Pleas court judge ordered the Cincinnati Planned Parenthood to turn over all records on abortions performed on women under the age of 18.
This was in response to a request from one specific family who allege that their daughter received an abortion without parental consent. The attorney for the plaintiffs reported that they are concerned about a pattern of behavior on the part of the clinic in failing to notify parents before performing an abortion.
The story is that the girl was taken to the clinic by her 21-year-old boyfriend who claimed to be her stepbrother and that the PP clinic performed the abortion without notifying her parents. IMHO, if the clinic did this, they were definitely wrong to do so. There should be no substitute for a parent's or legal guardian's permission, especially a stepbrother's. However, the idea that this family needs to have ALL abortion records of minors released seems to me to be more of a fishing expedition. Despite the fact that they claim the names would be blacked out, I fail to see why it is their legal right to see all these records. Of course, I am not an attorney.
It seems to me, for one thing, that the parents have plenty to deal with from a daughter who has a 21-year-old boyfriend, is being sexually active, is likely not using adequate birth control and then sought an abortion for which she obviously felt she COULD not ask permission from her parents.
Although I understand their concern if the PP did indeed perform an abortion on a minor without parental consent, I fail to understand why they would want to make this very private matter public instead of just seeking some type of retribution for their own daughter. It suggests to me that they are being played by someone in the Religious Right and/or their attorney who seeks to achieve fame by initiating the closing of all PP clinics.
PP plans to appeal, but I don't hold out much hope for an appeal winning in the current midwestern climate where people seem so willing to ravage their own daughters' grief in order to prevent any abortions from taking place in the United States.
And as an aside, I feel bound to ask why these same rabid antiabortion advocates are not vociferously calling for the closure of all the sweatshops on the Northern Mariana Islands where forced abortion and slave labor are taking place - at the behest of the current Republican congress. Is it because only Caucasian, "Christian" women deserve their support?
The link to this story is here: [http://news.enquirer.com/...]
