Florida Forcing 13yr Old Girl to Have Baby

I generally avoid the topic of abortion on this site and frankly I wish our government would do the same. There is a vast number of things that I feel should be left up to the morals and discretion of the people that are most deeply affected. Here are few of those types of things:

• Assisted euthanasia
• Abortion
  
• Consumption/use of potentially harmful/carcinogenic substances
• Using/Not using safety gear such as helmets and seat belts

I don't like it when government gets involved with these issues, as to me it is not the government's job to protect people from the consequences of their own decisions. Abortion is the diciest of these issues, because it pits a mother's rights to control her body against the rights of an unborn being, which may or may not actually have rights depending on how you define the earliest stages of life. In this specific case, however, the issue is clear cut:

A pregnant 13-year-old girl in Florida has been told she cannot have an abortion because she lacks the maturity to make such a decision.

...

The judge's ruling comes in spite of Florida state law which specifically does not require a minor to seek parental consent before an abortion.

This is an abuse of judicial power. I can understand it when people who think that life starts with conception and who equate abortion to murder try and find ways to prevent abortion. I find it repulsive, however, that a judge would ignore existing state law and force a 13 year old little girl to have a baby she does not want only on the grounds that "she lacks the maturity to make such a decision." Is going through 9 months of pregnancy and having the responsibility of raising a new human being something that requires less maturity? Keep in mind that this injunction was issued shortly before she was to have the abortion, which means she went through all of the emotional turmoil, made up her mind and thought she had a plan and then "POOF!" the judge took away her choice. According to the article, this girl is already under the care of the state, and isn't exactly part of a normal family that can help her raise a child while she herself finishes growing up.

If the state wants to have laws against abortion, or require minors to have parental consent before abortion, the people of that state can try to vote these laws into existence. In this case, Florida does not have such prohibitions, unless you are a little girl that happens to stumble across the wrong judge.

Thank you Rob, for commenting on this issue in the "Teen Girl Captures Mugger" post.