It's Recess-time Somewhere

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May 02, 2005

13 year-old defends her right to an abortion

My big brother pointed me to this, about the court hearing for the 13 year-old girl who is pregnant in Florida. Jeb! and his cronies are trying to deny her an abortion.

"Why can't I make my own decision?"

That was the blunt question to a judge from a pregnant 13-year-old girl ensnared in a Palm Beach County court fight over whether she can have an abortion.

"I don't know," Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez replied, according to a recording of the closed hearing obtained Friday.

"You don't know?" replied the girl, who is a ward of the state. "Aren't you the judge?"


[...]

"I think if I want to make the decision, it's my business and I can do that," she told the judge.

[...]

"I don't think I should have the baby because I'm 13, I'm in a shelter and I can't get a job," the girl said..."DCF would take the baby anyway," she said, but later added: "If I do have it, I'm not going to let them take it."

[...]

"Since you guys are supposedly here for the best interest of me, then wouldn't you all look at that fact that it'd be more dangerous for me to have the baby than to have an abortion?" she asked. Alvarez called that "a good point."

Spunky, isn't she?