Why people hate the ACLU

[chickenhead]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040802/ap_on_he_me/teen_abortions_1

[Dick Schmidt]

Though I agree that sometimes the ACLU goes a bit overboard, in this case I agree with them. Having an abortion is a decision a woman makes, not her family, no matter what her age.

One of the reasons the ACLU and other such groups are so hated is that they fight battles out on the edge. The fight for a free press is not over the Washington Post, but over porn. Gun rights are defended over ownership of assault weapons and cheap "Saturday night specials", not fine hunting shotguns. Free speech is fought over Al Sharpton and Malcolm X, not Kerry or Bush. My own hometown of Glendale was once the headquarters of the American Nazi Party, and it was the ACLU that helped them fight unfair eviction. If you fight the good fight for our rights, you don't get to pick your clients.


Dick


I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
-Robert Frost

The easy way is always mined.

[chickenhead]

This is for notification, not approval. If the article is correct, all it says is the parents must be notified...I don't think that's too much to ask.

[Tom]

Just another case of liberals trying to destroy the family unit. If a girl is a minor, her parents are responsible for every aspect of her life. Now they want to let the state interfere with that.
This not only why I hate the ACLU it is why I hate liberals in general and democrates in particular. They seek to destroy our culture by destroying the family unit and poisoning our children's minds with their political agenda they call and education system. The ACLU stands for murdering babies, prohibiting God , and destryoing our sovereignty. The best thing you can read in the paper is a lawyer's obituary.:mad:

[delayjf]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the ACLU founders claim that one of the purposes of the ACLU was to bring about the downfall of our Democracy using our judicial system??
I thought I read that somewhere.

[JustMissed]

Originally posted by Dick Schmidt
Having an abortion is a decision a woman makes, not her family, no matter what her age.
Dick



I cannot imagine a smart guy like you would think this way.

In a lot of places a young girl cannot get her ears pierced, get a tatoo or even go to the dentist without their parents permission.
Heck, in some schools a kid can't even take a aspirin without their parents permission and now you want to make it OK for someone's precious little 12 or 13 year old daughter to have a serious medical procedure without their parents knowledge. WOW. You don't happen to live in California do you?

JM

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally posted by JustMissed
I cannot imagine a smart guy like you would think this way.

In a lot of places a young girl cannot get her ears pierced, get a tatoo or even go to the dentist without their parents permission.
Heck, in some schools a kid can't even take a aspirin without their parents permission and now you want to make it OK for someone's precious little 12 or 13 year old daughter to have a serious medical procedure without their parents knowledge. WOW. You don't happen to live in California do you?

JM


My thoughts exactly JustMissed. Excellent points about how parents need to be notified and consulted in just about every other area of life concerning their MINOR children, but when it comes to abortion, a potentially DEADLY procedure (rare, but not unheard of), people want to make it ok to keep the parents in the dark!!!! What a crazy world....

[kenwoodallpromos]

Anti-american Communist Lawyers United. Anarchist agenda built on negatism.
Other groups work toward some of the sames case goals in a more sane manner.

[Tom]

ACLU = Hidden Agenda

Idea is good, execution leaves much to be sesired.

[PaceAdvantage]

I agree with Tom. The idea of the ACLU is noble and just. There should be someone out there defending free speech at every corner....we need that check and balance, no matter how unpopular the speech may be.

[CryingForTheHorses]

I am not a father (Have a little dog).I would be horrified if my little 12 to 16 yo girl had a abortion without my knowing!!

[Tom]

This is the agend af the feminazi's and other degenerates that are core democrates. Divid the country and destroy the family unit so that people will become dependant on THEM.

[superfecta]

Originally posted by Dick Schmidt
Though I agree that sometimes the ACLU goes a bit overboard, in this case I agree with them. Having an abortion is a decision a woman makes, not her family, no matter what her age.

One of the reasons the ACLU and other such groups are so hated is that they fight battles out on the edge. The fight for a free press is not over the Washington Post, but over porn. Gun rights are defended over ownership of assault weapons and cheap "Saturday night specials", not fine hunting shotguns. Free speech is fought over Al Sharpton and Malcolm X, not Kerry or Bush. My own hometown of Glendale was once the headquarters of the American Nazi Party, and it was the ACLU that helped them fight unfair eviction. If you fight the good fight for our rights, you don't get to pick your clients.


Dick


I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
-Robert Frost

The easy way is always mined. While it is a distasteful subject I believe the ACLU does have a point.The more pressing question is why should this affect you as a parent?If you are worried about this law,does that mean you are not a well informed parent about your child?You should know what your children are doing and forming them on good behavior.I have a daughter that is under 16 but looks 21 (I hate the fact that men my age often look at her like a piece of meat)but I feel I have raised her well enough that hopefully she doesn't put herself in that situation.Many of the pitfalls of todays youth can be blamed on the fact they weren't raised by anyone,their parents didn't get too involved in raising them.But they get upset when the teenage kids are getting drunk,stealing,and having sex ,by then its too late.It amazes me how lax most parents are.Afraid of their kids or consider them an annoyance.
I don't agree with everything the ACLU does.but we need these types of groups to keep the goverment from trampling all our rights.Remember that laws are not determined by right and wrong,they are determined by precidence(?).The Laws that came before them.And goverment likes to use the laws to their advantage,not just to maintain civility.

[PaceAdvantage]

Can a 16 year old girl have her tonsils removed without parental consent?

[JustRalph]

Originally posted by PaceAdvantage
Can a 16 year old girl have her tonsils removed without parental consent?


Man! There are some serious lines you could come back with on that question........ But I will stay serious and avoid the temptation.


I think it is a great question. She can't take an aspirin at school but she can receive a condom in health class........learn about Fellatio on the school bus..........and then have an abortion all in the same month.........and the ACLU is going to fight for these "Rights" Amazing...........

[highnote]

Based on this quote from the article, my understanding is that the ACLU thinks the wording on the ballot is misleading; and has nothing to do with taking a side in the abortion issue. They claim the wording on the ballot leads voters to think they are preserving the amendment. They claim the amendment is actually trying to take away the rights.

Here's the quote: "The lawsuit argues that the ballot summary for the proposed constitutional amendment is misleading — leading voters to think they're preserving rights when, in fact, the measure takes them away."

So it sounds to me the ACLU is not fighting for or against abortion, they are fighting to make sure the language on the ballot is clear. You might ask, what if it was the other way around? What if abortion was illegal? Would they fight to make sure the language was clear even if it meant it would keep abortion illegal? One would hope.

Abortion, like gambling, prostitution and even prohibition, is one of those issues that is never going to go away. I imagine the amendments will swing back and forth for ages. Things that are right and virtuous in one age will be seen as immoral in another. That's a fact as old as time. So we fight it out in the courts or in the newspapers or in the senate.

I can think of hypothetical cases where a female minor could be in greater danger telling her parents she is pregnant than by having a private abortion -- and vice-versa. But to say it should be absolutely one way or the other is too simple to capture the potential complexity and diversity of each situation.

For example, what if a husband and wife with a minor female daughter have immigrated from a middle-eastern country to the United States. In their former country it is permissible to kill a female member of the family if they feel she has dishonored the family. Let's say the minor female daughter is raped by a sibling or cousin and becomes pregnant. The minor female knows that if the family ever finds out she has become pregnant she will be killed. Is it wrong for her to seek a private abortion without telling her parents?

True, she may be able to run away or seek shelter. But what if she loves some of her family members and couldn't live with the thought of never seeing them again if she runs away?

Maybe in a sense, these laws are meaningless, because they can't cover every scenario. And can they even be enforceable? If the amendment were to pass and if a minor female, as I've described above, walks into a clinic and asks for an abortion to save her life because she will be killed if her family finds out she is pregnant, should the doctors turn her away knowing she will die?

I don't know how to answer that question. But it could happen in this country with a diverse population.

Other times it may make sense to require the parents' permission. My point is that it is not a simple "black and white" or "wright and wrong" issue.

In our country we believe we were born with certain inalienable rights -- the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

If you're a minor female as I've described above what are your rights under the our constitution?

And maybe more important, if the hypothetical minor female I've described above lives in Florida and this new amendment passes -- what would her rights be under the Florida constitution?

[Tom]

What if the minor girl is just a slut who can't say no? :eek:

[highnote]

Originally posted by Tom
What if the minor girl is just a slut who can't say no? :eek:

This is a long answer. Sorry about that. Your question got me to thinking (for a change :))

First you need to define slut. What constitutes slutty behavior? I suppose defining slut, is like defining pornography - it's in the eye of the beholder.

I think it's important to remember that we are all people first. So rather than saying the minor girl is a slut who can't say no; it might be more accurate to say the minor girl exhibits slutty behavior. She is a girl, not a slut. It's her behavior that is slutty, not her as a human.

Call me crazy, but in my opinion slutty behavior by a minor does not make one deserving of rape -- not even by a relative.

What about the female soldier in the photographs with the naked Iraqi prisoners. Some might argue that was slutty behavior. Does that make her a slut? I don't think so, but it certainly isn't behavior I'd want my daugther to engage in.

If a minor girl is raped, what difference does it make if she engaged in slutty behavior?

Is it OK to rape a woman who practices prostitution? Again, I don't think so. I think you have to put the human being first.

Rather than saying someone is a quadraplegic, it's more appropriate to say the person is an individual with quadraplegia. Rather than say a person is a schizophrenic, it's more accurate to say the person is an individual with schizophrenia. It's also more humane.

I think when we call women who practice prostitution "prostitutes", it demeans them -- dehumanizes them. They're people first.

Take slavery for instance. We often refer to human beings who are enslaved as "slaves". Again it dehumanizes them. Once they are thought of as less than human it becomes easier to keep them in bondage.

So even if the minor girl engaged in slutty behavior and can't say no and was raped by a relative and became pregnant, I still don't know if it would be morally right to deny her an abortion without her parents consent knowing that denying her an abortion is sentencing her death at the hands of her family. But then again, what good is a family if you can't rely on them to make the right choice for their daughter -- even if the right choice for them is putting her to death?

I don't mean to attack you, it seemed your reply was made in jest (at least I hope so), but it just got me to using by brain -- and that's always a dangerous thing! :)

[Tom]

Actually, it was not all in jest. I would say the number of pregnecies due to being a slut far outweigh those the result from rapes. Like, waaaay outnumbered. Even more are due to ignorance. But for those relatively few caused by rape are a good reason fo rthe state to put itself in between a child and her parents. NOT. The family unit is far more improtant than any government.

BTW..are you Bill Clinton:confused:
You seem to have trouble with definitions. Slutty is as slutty does.
A Slave is one who is enslaved. The ACT of being ensleved or the slutty behaviour is what dehamnizes them, not the term we use to describe them.
Why do liberals have so much trouble with phrasology and so little problem with sucking an unborn baby's arms and legs and head off with a vacuum cleaner? They have a clinical term "abortion" to describe a horrendously violent act that is worse than the beheadings being done by islamic extremeists. Or should we start calling those "political statements?"
So she is behaviorally challenged and had to bypass prental persmission to get an abortion. Call it waht is is - the slut got nailed and then the state helped he lie to her legal guardians in order to commit a murder of convienince for herself.

[highnote]

Originally posted by Tom
But for those relatively few caused by rape are a good reason fo rthe state to put itself in between a child and her parents. NOT. The family unit is far more improtant than any government.

Actually, according to the article, "Opponents say a parental notice law will interject the government into the most intimate family relationships and could endanger girls who are afraid to tell their parents they are pregnant — including girls who are the victims of incest."

This is kind of the purpose of my original hypothetical case. If the amendment is overturned wouldn't that actually interject the government into families lives? Isn't that what you think should not happen?

I guess I don't see your point. It seems that if the goal is to keep government out of the family's business then allowing people to govern themselves is the way to do. By taking a person's ability to decide how to conduct their life away from them by government decree, isn't that government interference?

Isn't it up to the parents to make sure they take care of their children and teach them right from wrong? Sometimes parents fail. So the government steps in. However, sometimes the government oversteps it's bounds and interferes with good law abiding families.

I'm not arguing, just seeking wisdom. I respect your opinion. Enlighten me.

I just want to debate a hypothetical situation that isn't easy for me to find an answer to.

In my example, the minor girl was not slutty; was raped by a relative; became pregnant; would be killed if she did go to her family; she considers an abortion; does not want to run away because it means never again seeing some family members she loves. And let's say she is only 14 years old.

My question is, "What is this girl to do?"

[Tom]

That is the minority of incidents. She should go to her church, go to a social worker, go to the police.....would you have her have a secret abortion and let her uncle continue to prey on other minors, which is most likely what will happen.

[Tom]

BTW....good discussion..nobody is calling anyone any names...just debting ideas. Refreshing.;)

[highnote]

Originally posted by Tom
That is the minority of incidents. She should go to her church, go to a social worker, go to the police.....would you have her have a secret abortion and let her uncle continue to prey on other minors, which is most likely what will happen.

I agree with you that more minor girls become pregnant through promiscuity than by rape.

For the situation I concocted, there is a big quandry. She goes to the police. Her uncle is arrested. She is killed for bringing dishonor to her family.

Or she gets a secret abortion. She gets the chance to geld her uncle in his sleep (how's that for keeping gov't out of family). She lives.

Either way the outcome is not good as far as I can see. What other options are there?

This situation may be far fetched but it illustrates how difficult some decisions can be. Reminds me of that Clint Eastwood movie "Unforgiven". Sometimes a person can end up in a no win situation. I guess what it comes down to is you have to follow your heart.

I'm enjoying the debate, too. Thanks.

[Tom]

Abortion, death penalty, war.....we may not agree on everything, but I think we would both agree - NO GELDING! :eek:

[highnote]

John Wayne Bobbit can testify to that. I don't even want to think about how much that must have hurt. Ouch.

[highnote]

Technically, I suppose he wasn't gelded, but it must've been just about as painful.

I can't imagine waking up in the middle of the night to that horror. Then his wife drives away with it in her car and throws it out the window. He's damn lucky some neighborhood dog didn't get hold of it.

With a wife like that, who needs Islamic extremists.

It gives rise to a new meaning of beheading.

I can see I've got too much time on my hands.

[Tom]

Can you imagine the neighbor when his dog came home?
"What have you got there, boy?......IEEEEEIIIIIEEEEEE!"
:eek:

BYW, when he traveled to NY for a Howard STern appearance, he used the phony name of "Les Johnson."
Now there's a guy with a sense of humor!"

[JimL]

Les Johnson! Now that is funny Tom. JimL