Monday, September 18, 2006

What year is it anyway? Parents kidnap daughter and force an abortion

OK, I don't want this to turn into a pro-life/pro-choice post. Rather, I'm concerned about this news as an indication that there is something wrong with humanity. What kind of world do we live in where parents forcibly (with rope, duct tape and a gun) kidnap their 19 year old daughter, drive her across state lines and force her to have an abortion (I'm curious as to how that conversation went..."hi, our daughter needs an abortion...she's right here, tied up and held at gunpoint"...the nebulous concept of what happened at the abortion clinic leads to more questions).

This girl is 19 years old...she's reached legal age to be separated from her parents reign. True, she should listen to and value her parents' advice, and if she is living at home, they do and should have more influence over her. However, just because she ignored their arguments that she needed an emergency abortion because she chose to get pregnant by a guy in jail is no excuse for them to resort to the kind of violent act they did (which will place them squarely in jail...possibly for something as bad or worse than the baby's father).

As a parent, I am extremely concerned with protecting my children from harm, from sorrow, from pain. If they do something stupid that gets them in trouble, I'll gladly chastise them. I will do my best to raise them over the next ~20 years and help them make good choices. I know they will make mistakes and there will be things they do that I wish they wouldn't...once they're "out of the house" or of "legal age", I'll have less influence, but I'll still expect them to listen to my advice and hopefully live by some of the rules I put down for them. But if they do break some of my rules, I don't see myself tying them up and dragging them to some sort of reconcilliation for their actions.

I'm sure these people just thought they were being good parents...looking out for their daughter's best interests. But the hypocrisy and danger in the act just defies reason and makes me weep for the state of a world in which people can do something like this and think they're in the right.

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