On the one hand, it strikes me as patently obvious that no 13 year old should be forced to bear a child. On the other hand, it strikes me as utterly absurd to suppose that this is because 13 year-old females are entitled to choose. The reference here is to L.G.—the 13 year-old in Florida who won the right to have an abortion.
It is ridiculous to suggest, as some feminists did, that allowing L.G. to have an abortion stands as another victory for women. Not every abortion that a woman might legally have constitutes a victory for women. Indeed, some abortions that women have are an indication of a depraved moral character; and there is nothing in behavior stemming from moral depravity that warrants rejoicing. Abortion is a significant medical operation; and any society that treats it as if it were the equivalent of getting a manicure or changing one’s hairstyle does what is wrong. One can hold that women should have the right to abort without trivializing the moral significance of exercising this right. After all, we all hold that people have the right to marry; yet, only a fool thinks that participating in the institution of marriage is trivial. And counsel with regard to the significance of getting marriage is appropriate.
No 13 year-old should be forced to bear a child. But the reason for this cannot because when it comes to making choices, a 13 year old has the maturity of an adult. Anyone who thinks was never a 13 year-old, which is impossible, or is woefully deluded. Why any 21 year-old will tell you that, when it comes to the maturity of adulthood, the difference between the ages of 16 and 21 is absolutely dramatic. And everyone concedes that the difference between the ages of 13 and 16 are dramatic. A 13 year old has no more of a claim to being an adult than a single engine plane has to being a jet.
Accordingly, insofar as a 13 year-old should be allowed to have an abortion the argument cannot possibly be that this is because all women should have the right to choose an abortion. For that argument is supposed to be about adult women having the right to choose, the idea being that an adult woman can do with her body as she pleases. Not only does such freedom not belong to 13 year-olds, their having it is incompatible with the demands of good parenting. If it were true that 13 year-olds were already adults, then parents could not be imprisoned for child abandonment should they decide to no longer provide for their 13 year old children. And I have met no one who thinks that.
So it is disingenuous for feminists to characterize the legal victory of L.G. to have an abortion as a victory for women. Why? Because the reason why 13 year-old L.G. should have been allowed to have an abortion is not at all about adult women having the freedom to do as they please with their bodies. In general, we hold that adults have freedoms that 13 year-olds are not entitled to have. As I have already indicated, we cannot make sense of the obligations of parenting if we think otherwise.
Depraved feminism wants abortion rights at all costs, and will twist and bend any argument to that end. I am surprised that they are not advocating outright sexual intercourse for 13 year-olds, as that would surely increase the number of abortions that had to be performed. It would seem that nothing is inappropriate just so long as it provides an opportunity to affirm the right to have abortion.
L.G. won the right to have an abortion. In fairness, I must acknowledge that she had to fight against those who wrongly think that a pregnancy should be brought to term no matter what. But this was a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one. The opportunity to teach a profound moral lesson to L.G. was put to one side in the name women’s rights. She was having sex at 13 because she had not been taught proper respect for her body. Abortion and proper moral training would have been the desired approach. For depraved feminists, however, the problem with talk of proper moral training is that it is incompatible with the ideology of abortion at all costs.
So a 13 year-old has now been told the lie that when it comes to making so significant a decision as having an abortion, she has no less maturity than an adult woman might have regarding the matter. Is this moral progress? Only if you believe in the tooth fairy!
A 13 year-old. Not mature enough to be fully responsible for her own well-being, but mature enough to choose an abortion. One does not have to be anti-abortion in order to see that something is drastically wrong with this picture. A little honesty, though, would go a very long way. Both sides of the abortion debate do what is utterly abhorrent when they advance their ideological views at the expense of the well-being of children.
