Health Department: Student's abortion outlined in consent form

[struggle4progress]

Updated Mar 24, 2010 - 2:00 pm
By STEPHANIE KLEIN
MyNorthwest.com

The mother of a Ballard High School student is furious over her claim that the school helped her daughter seek an abortion, but the King County Public Health Department says the service was outlined in a consent form.

Admitting she signed a form, the mother told KOMO-TV she figured services provided by the Ballard Teen Health Center included treatment for stomach viruses or even birth control, but not the termination of a pregnancy ...

"The form describes what the parent is consenting to, but also illustrates what a youth may independently consent to," T.J. Cosgrove, King County Public Health Department Manager for School Based Programs, told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross Wednesday.

Cosgrove read the consent form to Ross: "Youth may independently access reproductive health care at any age. They may independently receive drug and alcohol services and mental health counseling from age 13" ...

http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=301930


This might be useful info, since CyberWingnutLand (of course) is ablaze, and there's a long thread in LBN, possibly generating more heat than light:

Mother furious after in-school clinic sets up teen's abortion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4317304

[leftofcool]

1. I will admit to being a fence sitter on this one

I am pro choice but not sure if I would want my daughter to have an abortion without me knowing about it in case of possible medical complications.

[rve300]

2. "reproductive health care"

If I sign a school consent form that can be used against me after they schedule my daughters abortion. Then that form had better have the word abortion on it, not a politically correct euphemism for abortion.

[struggle4progress]

4. Some general policy remarks:

It is extremely unlikely that anyone will offer general consent forms listing procedure by procedure the procedures allowed. Otherwise, there is the potential for countless lawsuits over whether taking blood pressure was allowed by electronic wristcuff or only by mercury manometer, whether consent was granted for external manual efforts at heart pumping or only for attempts by electric paddles, whether in a prescription a particular brand name and its generic form were equally permitted, and so on. One will either be giving consent for the minor to seek available treatments, or one is not, and I suspect the normal view would be: if the clinic willingly and honestly answers whatever questions arise then signing the consent form is prima facie evidence of informed consent. In short, a person who grants some general consent without inquiring into the legal dimensions of that consent may not really have much by way of complaint later

One should also note that current law in the state of Washington allows minors themselves to consent to some medical procedures, including abortion, without prior parental consent; in fact, this seems to be the contemporary situation in perhaps half of the states. So the complaint against the school and clinic in the case at hand, This was done without my consent, is misdirected, since by law the student was already free to seek and obtain an abortion herself, without her mother's knowledge or consent

[TheMadMonk]

5. The school did not SCHEDULE the abortion.

A clinic within the school gave her a PG test (which the girl requested) and then (again on request) a referal to the local Planned Parenthood clinic.

No the form does not included the specific word abortion. It says "reproductive health services" which covers everything from basic hygine to abortion or giving birth (patient's choice).

State law is what gives the girl the right to access those services without parental consent or knowledge. And the school would be in violation of those laws if it had said anything.


Those who believe they have an absolute right to know, are very much the reason that these laws were written to allow your child to keep you absolutely in the dark.

"Good Parents" who feel affronted, need to spare a thought for the girls; kicked out into the street with nothing but the clothes on their back; disappeared to a distant aunt for a year; raped by an abusive carer; killed for family honour; and many other abuses heaped on girls who had the effrontery to fuck someone daddy didn't give her to. Their lives trump any number of parents with hurt feelings.

[emilyg]

3. I'm with the mother on this.

[musette_sf]

7. not me

see my post below

besides, there's at least a 50% chance that if she HAD told mom first, she and the young miss would have been paying a covert visit for services, to the place they protest at every week. Happens pretty often.

[musette_sf]

6. I am so happy that this young woman's rights were protected

and exercised. I'm sure she is grateful too, to live in a state that respects her autonomy.

I'm SURE that Mom would have been just a paragon of love, compassion and understanding had her daughter come to her first. :sarcasm:

Because what every accidentally preggo 15 year old needs is to be harangued with BS G-d-blather, and then be forced to give birth. THAT'LL show HER!!!

:grr:

[radical noodle]

8. What caring mother

wants to prolong her daughter's agony this way? Sounds like a mother who'd rather make a point for the anti-abortion crowd than to do what's best for her daughter now.

I have a daughter and of course I'd prefer that she tell me something like this, but I've also BEEN a daughter and know how trapped a teen can feel by an unwanted pregnancy. A local school had a female student commit suicide a few years ago because she was pregnant and her mother refused to let her have an abortion.