Posted on 05/20/2002 11:36:54 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
My sister was on the shot, thinking it's "just birth control". She had NO IDEA what it did. I told her what it did, and she and her husband were shocked. No one told her, she could be spontaneously aborting every month. Planned Parenthood never told her.
One reason for PP's support by middle-class Democrat women is that they do not like the idea of their wayward husbands being sued for child support by some teen, or (worse) having their meal ticket transported to jail for having gotten a minor pregnant
Another big theme is that every woman (and they would classify a 12 or 13 year old as a "woman") must make her own choices about all aspects of her life. So while they would not want to notify parents or authorities about a relationship that the girl is saying is consensual, since those parties might FORCE her to discontinue it, they will eagerly fill her mind with ideology designed to get her to "DECIDE" that she wants to discontinue the relationship.
It's all pretty loopy, but most feminists adhere to this ideology, and they are quite eager to convert young girls and women to their belief system.
I'm sure that in most cases like the one described in the article, PP advises the girl to get counseling from someone who would recommend reporting the relationship to authorities, and/or advises her that the police would be interested in hearing about the relationship. However, like most organizations and individuals who provide counseling to victims of various sorts of abuse, they are wary of contacting authorities against their client's wishes, because word of such policies gets around quickly, and is likely to discourage other victims from going to the organization or individual for help. This tends to cause victims to continue viewing their abuser as an ally or protector, which in turn enables the abuse to continue. This article also seems to assume, without evidence, that such girls are 1) telling the truth, and 2) willing to identify the man. In fact, some girls may well be using the "I was raped" or "An older man did this to me" ploy in hopes of getting free services, and those who are telling the truth have probably been warned by the man (with accompanying threats) not to identify him. PP staffers no doubt have plenty of experience with both of these scenarios.
Some years ago, a friend of mine was a volunteer counselor at an independent PP-like clinic, and related a number of stories to me about pregnant adolescent girls. When accompanied by a parent (almost always the mother), the girls usually claimed they had been "raped", but when taken into a room alone with a counselor, the rape story always fell apart. It appeared that the parents were skeptical of the rape story too, since they had brought the girl to PP, but had not contacted police. Thus bringing parents into the picture is not necessarily helpful in getting to the truth.
I must laugh. You have just described my 19-year marriage. Does that count?
You want to call down the RICO statutes on Catholic church leaders who didn't report priestly criminal abuse of young teen boys, but you defend PP clinics who don't report heterosexual criminal abuse of young teen girls.
At least with a young teen girl seeking an abortion who has been statutorily raped by an older man, there is irrefutable evidence of the crime. In a priestly abuse case, it might be much more difficult to establish guilt.
In both cases, I believe that it is against the law for the organization (Catholic Church or PP) NOT to report the crime.
The consent of the victim is irrelevant in both cases. The abuser will use every psychological trick in the book to be able to continue his abuse of the victim. How else can you account for the fact that many of the priestly abuse victims allowed the abuse to continue for years, just as the young girls allowed the older men to continue to abuse them? That's why we have laws against such things. Young teens are unable to protect themselves from evil, crafty older perverts.
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