Were that your choice, Lesly, you would be free to make your choice.

But here it is a clear case of property.

Who owns that uterus?

Not the young woman. At all. Her legal guardians or parents own it until she is 18. They vote. In fact, they each have veto if it comes to it.

The State clearly has an interest in seeing how she and her guardians come down on this decision, by making it costly and difficult to do. Might as well have her jump through hoops of fire and run an obstacle course and then write an essay on infanticide and then read the bloody Bible twice, once forwards and once backwards.

Before the quiz.

Last in line, the young woman herself. She's going to have to go off the reservation, down the back alley, if she wants to exercise property rights to her own body in open violation of the law.

Over in India, they are casually sterilizing women during abortions, and mentioning it afterward -- as State policy. Where in the world do women get to own themselves entire?

If men had an organ within their breathing bodies that belonged -- in practice -- to the State or to any other person, well that would come to an end right quick. But it's somehow fine for females of the species?

The three-fifths law for the black man is ended, but the nine-tenths law for females is still in place.

Oh no. The choice is not really mine. You see, since I have a uterus, my body is up for grabs too. But I'll help this girl get an abortion if that's what she wants.

is to have raped her. Illegal in 57 states, I think.

Because lawmakers want to inconvenience women as much as possible in the hopes that they will forgo an abortion. Cost prohibitive + unwanted, invasive procedures = win in wingnut world.

Oklahoma is introducing a bill that would make vaginal ultrasounds mandatory:

http://classic.feministing.com/archives/009001.html

That pro-lifers view women's bodies as public property to probe at will is a bygone conclusion.

Maybe the child grows up to be our second Hitler.

I don't get these what ifs in the abortion debate. If you really don't know, why postulate?

The point was that the $500,000 price tag in the original question was simply speculation.

Maybe's it's stark speculation but the worst case scenarios are possible, even if they're outliers.

I don't disagree with your state assistance for women who want to put babies up for adoption, but our adoption system needs much improvement for children with special needs. My brother and girlfriend were taking weekly classes at a state-run adoption center when they opted to grow old childless. All of the children available had emotional and/or mental health problems and they weren't encouraged by programs addressing the children's needs, if there were any available.

I don't blame them for changing their minds. My oldest brother is bipolar schizophrenic and it was hell on earth growing up with him.

I agree that adoption is not an easy solution and it is certainly not a cure-all. And I am sure that there are also many problems with the foster care system.

But if I were advocating on behalf of this young girl, I would put my efforts into trying to improved the foster care system (for the girl) and the adoption system (if there is a child). If I am trying to influence public policy and I say, "This adoption (or foster care) system isn't working, and we really need to fix it," then most people would agree with that in principle, at least. But if I say "We need to get this young girl an abortion," then there are a lot of good people who are just not going to listen to me. And there are a lot of naive people who are going to listen to Rush Limbaugh instead, when he tells them that I am a communistic/socialist, and all I care about is abortion.

I'm sorry, but I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to say here.

The point is that this really should be a free choice, one not constrained by economic incentives imposed by the state. $445 is too much to pony up if the possible outcome is an abortion, up to $500,000 of the tax payer's money is just fine as an inducement not to have one?

C'mon, do you really mean to say that you can't see that state in question here is trying to make the cost of an abortion as expensive as possible, and that really beilieve this doesn't enter into any calculus of choice on the part of the woman?

I think that the government policy in this case is reflective of the fact that many people in this country strongly belief that abortion is wrong, and they are vehemently opposed to having the government pay for abortions. This is not my personal view. I do not see the world in such black and white terms. But I think it is a view that has to be taken into account. I think that it has been a tremendous mistake for the Left to be dismissive of this view. This is what I was trying to get at in the previous post that you found difficult to understand. There are people who will grudgingly accept that abortion is legal, but then if you insist that the government should pay for it, it is like rubbing salt in their wounds.

Maybe I am still not being clear, but this is probably as clear as I am going to get for today.

But what you're saying is incorrect. These people "who don't want the government paying for abortion" have no problem with getting it to require extra fees be paid besides what is being paid for the abortion.

As I said, what you're saying is making no sense, so I'm guessing that I'm misunderstanding you somehow. Could you try to rephrase what you were saying please?

I agree w/Scent on the resentment. They don't mind making women pay for unnecessary procedures. Hell, conservatives love pork as long as projects go to their district.

It's not so much resentment as I wish that he would simply acknowledge the fact monetary considerations do play a role in whether or not a person will get an abortion and that these good conservatives are using the government to throw up financial roadblocks as a way to discourage anyone from getting one.

I would think this would be an extremely simple, extremely obvious point . . . but that's just me, I guess :-)

As I mentioned in my post below, I think it is helpful to distinguish between the two issues. I agree that requiring a sonogram is basically "throwing up a roadblock." It's actively trying to discourage the procedure. I think that is the type of law that is designed to appeal to hard-core anti-abortion type folks.

But I really think requiring the government to pay for the abortion is a different issue. Suppose that I don't believe in abortion. I may concede that it is your right to do what you want, but if the government is funding an abortion, "that means that I am paying for it through my tax dollars. And that is not fair. Because now I am being required to pay for a procedure that I don't think should be done in the first place."

You may not agree with this logic, but I think this is the logic of a fair number of people.

Nor am I talking about the government paying for an abortion in this case. I am merely requesting that they pay additional $445 for the sonogram.

The roadblock, you see, is not just some sort of attempt to induce shame or revulsion in person wanting an abortion, it's also in the extra cost, the extra $445 that is required up front before a person can even consider an abortion as a possible option.

That is what the government should be ponying up for, as well as the $500,000 if you want this decision to be (relatively) free of financial constraints. I don't see how anyone, conservative or otherwise, could claim that this is anything but reasonable.

OK. I think I see where the confusion is. I think there are two separate issues here. The government paying for the abortion procedure is one issue. I think there are reasonable people who feel the government should not pay for this.

Requiring a sonagram (and charging a fee for it) is another issue. I think that you can make a good argument that a law like that just creates more problems than it solves, and most reasonable people would listen to it.

If the state is not willing to fund an abortion procedure, (assuming this is the girl's wish) then hopefully it will pony up to surgically lop off the rapist father's baby making equipment before he impregnates his step daughter again.

Where's the outrage? Where's the case against step-daddy? Step-daddy needs to be prosecuted, forced to work in a prison worker program all his life, and have every damn cent he makes go to support the child if she deems to have it, or pay restitution to her if she deems not to.

That would be a sensible solution.

As for castrating step-daddy, I'm down with that on an emotional level, but I don't want to see that kind of punishment instituted into the criminal justice system. That's a bad road for the justice system to go down.

I certainly think it is a tragic situation. Actually, when I was young, my mother was a social worker for child protective services in New York state, and I've heard many similar tragic situations. My mother's job was to assess if a child was being abused and, if necessary, to initiate the process of removing the child from the home. This process sometimes involved testifying in "family" court (courts set up in NY to deal with these types of situations). The system my mother described was quite dysfunctional. I think that conditions for social workers were very difficult then, and my guess is that they are even more difficult now, since my impression is that the social workers of today have a higher case load.

But I don't think that getting angry or looking for revenge actually solves any problems. After a while, you stop getting angry and start thinking about the root causes of the problems and how to solve them.

So in this case, you might also ask, why was this girl in this home for so long in the first place? Didn't anyone notice that her mother was negligent? One answer is probably that most social workers are overworked and underpaid. The system basically doesn't have the capacity to help all those who need it.

So now if this girl does have the government pay for her abortion, then what? She is still in an abusive home? I think that what is going to help her most is to get into a safe, sane, living situation.

So in answer to Sean's original question, if I were that girl, what would I want? I would want to get the hell out of that home and find a place to live where I can live without fear, and be supported and learn how to function normally. Whether I am able to have an abortion or give the child up for adoption, I will still need these things.

I think that the question of abortion is one aspect of a larger problem. I think the bigger problem in this case is poverty, and to work on that you need to get as many people on your side as you can. By focusing the debate on "government funding for abortion," you lose a lot of people.

There are two adult players in this drama so why do you only mention the woman? The mother may have been negligent but she didn't rape her child.

Please get back to your drawing board and find the real root cause of why this male might feel entitled to rape this female.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

My line of thinking was that if Mom was a crackhead, then the daughter was probably neglected most of her life. An experienced social worker might have been able to work with the mother and gotten her into a rehab program or counseling. Or failing that, a social worker might have been able to remove the girl from the home and gotten her into a foster care long before she was raped and impregnated by her step-father. These things are unlikely, but it is possible and sometimes social workers are able to help. This line of thinking comes from what I remember of what my mother told me about her cases.

I didn't mention the step-father because it just seems obvious to me that he should be prosecuted and go to jail. I certainly agree that he should be punished. I think with DNA testing, it should not be difficult to convict him.

Why might this male feel entitled to rape this young female?

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}

It's a good question, but I don't have any easy answer for that one. My guess is that the step-father is probably an addict as well, and he is someone who takes whatever he can get away with, without thinking about the harm he is causing to other people. I wouldn't expect someone like this to think in terms of what he is entitled to, but more about what he can get away with.

Somehow I don't think that is the answer that you are looking for, but I'd be interested in hearing you view.

Your arguments are a perfect illustration of why a solution to the problem of abortion will continue to elude us. You've looked at it from many angles (foster care, adoption system, negligent mother, overworked social workers etc.) except from the one that counts, namely, the person responsible for impregnating this girl. Solutions for the symptoms of gender inequality, which is the real issue here, are transient at best. Male sexuality, no matter how perverse, is untouchable and cannot be discussed under any circumstance, ever. That is the crux of the problem.

I'll leave you with a quote from the great educator Paulo Freire.

The great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.

_{Tolerating prostitution is tolerating abuse and torture of women and children.}