A Texas court granted a Texas teenager the right to have a child against the wishes of her parents. In two articles, one by Fox News and one by CNN, we see a divergent view of what actually happened. While one news source refers to the teenager's lawyer as Carey and the other as Casey (as of my 10:47 am viewing of the web pages), they cherry-pick quotes that gives the appearance that these are in fact two different people. The Fox News article has Carey triumphantly proclaiming that this is a "victory for life" whereas the CNN story has Casey arguing that Roe v. Wade guarantees the right for women to choose the fate of their pregnancies. We end up with a feel good story for both sides of the abortion debate at the best, and conscious disregard for the underlying philosophical debates at the worst.
What is also notable is that the lawyer works for an anti-abortion group specializing in pro-life litigation. However, I question these tactics. The winning argument, well maybe not for a Texas court, is that is is insane for someone to force any woman to abort a child against their will, regardless of the risk to the person or baby. Otherwise, parents can undermine the autonomy of a woman in child bearing decisions simply because she is a minor.
There could be a further underlying strategic goal here. In a case in which a teenager wishes to get an abortion over her parents wishes, she still must overcome the general state interest in preserving life, which courts have been using to justify various hurdles for teenagers to over come to procure abortions. In contrast, here the state interest doubles down on the teenagers interest in having a child and protects the child from overbearing parents.
We can also look at this the other way. If the state is so willing to protect a child whose parents are trying to coerce her into having an abortion, why is the state so unwilling to protect a child from coercion from parents forcing the teenager into having the child. It seems inconsistent to me to say that a parent has no say over child bearing decisions in one case, and in the other case can use anything short of abuse in the other situation to coerce a child.
The pro-choice lobby would be wise to take on more of these easy to win cases to prevent the pollution of workable jurisprudence uphold the reproductive rights of women. The right to autonomy over ones self requires that there be no overbearing influence forcing action in one direction or another. The pro-choice lobby should see that the Roe v. Wade doctrine is not interpreted to say that coercion is only bad if only done in one direction.
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