Court Orders Girl to Spread and Multiply.

ROMANIA
A Strange Country

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Court Orders Girl to Spread and Multiply.

Meet Judge Ronald Alvarez, of Palm Beach. He is a smiley fellow, as you can see. Being a Juvenile Division judge, he mostly has to deal with minors. As everyone knows, hanging around kids all day long can render you mad. Raving. Poor Alvarez, in spite of his best efforts, seems to have been slightly affected.

For instance, when a 13 year old girl decided to get an abortion, Alvarez ruled that she is "too young and immature to make an informed medical decision.", and placed her under a temporary injunction, so she can't do it. Obviously enough, the baby won't sit in there for ever and ever, so a temporary injunction might well be definitive. To be fair, the judge might have also placed the foetus under an injunction from coming out, or even growing for that matter, to give the court more time to process paperwork.

Seriously, with all the bullocks we have been hearing recently about the rights of unborn infants, it's just about time they start getting some obligations. You can't have rights without obligations, can you ? A good place to start would be obeying a court order. So, to be fair, each and every time a judge issues an injunction on the mother to prevent her from having an abortion, he should issue another injunction on the foetus to prevent it from coming out in the meanwhile. Then if the foetus doesn't obey the court order, it could be held in contempt. Ofcourse, serving court papers to an baby living at 1, Uterus Drive might be a bit of a complicated affair, especially if the process server were to be a woman... but maybe something can be worked out so the husband, or maybe a third party designated by the mother can be temporarily assigned as process server.

All those complications aside, the judge sits on a very interesting higher ground, which appears to be all made out of empty pepsi cans and stale chinese food packages. While the girl might be younger than him, she is undeniably more of a woman than he is or will ever be, even 50 years from now. Since age doesn't seem to have been a prerequisite for getting pregnant, it reasonably wouldn't be a prerequisite for handling said pregnancy.

What would Alvarez say if he discovered one day he is pregnant and some judge ruled that he, being male, lacks the mental capacity to make an informed decision on the matter ? At least that would make some sense, by comparison.

Obviously, all legal precedent stands squarely against Alvarez's ruling, if we are to cite only the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, in re A.C. Neither the viability of the fetus nor the potential harm to it are factors that can be used to justify overriding the woman's wishes. The court went on to hold that a pregnant woman who is unable to give an informed consent, like other patients, has the right to have her decision ascertained through the procedure known as substituted judgment and then carried out. This ruling is consistent with other trial and appellate court decisions which have similarily rejected the argument that a pregnant woman has a legal duty to guarantee the health and well-being of her fetus. (Stallman V. Youngquist, 531 N.E.2d 355, 359 ('11.1988); Commonwealth v. Pellegrini, No.87970, Superior Court, Plymouth, Mass. slip op. (Oct.15, 1990); Michigan V. Bremer, 90-32227-FH, Circuit Court for the County of Muskegon, slip op. (Jan.31, 1991) ; UAW V. Johnson Controls, Inc., No.89-1215 (Marc. 20, 1991), slip. op. etc etc etc.

Everyone is going to file amicus petitions, the injunction will be probably overriden, but the fact still remains that someone somewhere is a judge who thinks that for being 50 years of age he has more competence to decide what's to be done with an uterus than the person carrying said uterus around.

O, brave new world that has such people in it.

10 pregnant girls have an off button.

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