L.G., the teen who almost became the next cause celebre for those who would give the state dominion over private medical decisions, was relieved to have terminated her pregnancy yesterday, according to her lawyer.
All case law was indicating an eventual loss for Jeb! and his DCF winged monkeys, and public opinion was strongly with L.G., so despite the pleas of Randall Terry, Jeb! must have abruptly realized that he has a great respect for the rule of law, so he opted to get the fuck out of L.G.’s business rather than face another very public and humiliating Schiavo-style drubbing from the courts and the people.
So, we await the inevitable backlash from the religious right – let down again by one of their poster boys. Actually, it’s kind of funny that they’ve been so relatively quiet in this case so far. Rumor has it that L.G. might be a minority. If so, that fact would go a long way toward explaining their relative lack of concern, since a prerequisite for becoming an extreme right icon of right-to-life martyrdom seems to be a certain natural pallor that can only come from DNA.
Facts that have emerged in the last few days indicate that L.G. was very possibly a victim of sexual abuse and rape, since she was allegedly living and having sex with an adult male after running away from a state facility. Now, L.G. Is just 13 years old. Are any law enforcement agencies looking into this case? Would things be just a little different if L.G. was white and baptist and living with her parents?
Just wondering.
Girl in state care ends pregnancy
A 13-year-old foster child ended her pregnancy Tuesday, hours after Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the state to stop all intervention in her case.
A juvenile court judge cleared the way for the girl’s abortion in a final hearing Tuesday morning. The girl was taken to a clinic soon afterward, said her attorney, Maxine Williams of Palm Beach County’s Legal Aid Society.
The 13-year-old, known by her initials L.G., had no complications, Williams said late Tuesday.
“She was relieved. And ready to get it over with,” she said.
The case set off a national debate when the head of the Florida Department of Children and Families ordered her attorneys to stop the abortion in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the state agency was right to show concern for the life of L.G.’s unborn child and to consult a judge before L.G. made an important decision.
“The department did the right thing to make the initial appeal, to make sure that this was reviewed carefully. We’re talking about the loss of a life,” Bush said Tuesday morning.
But he said it was now time for the state to drop its appeals and respect the decision of Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez, who ruled Monday that L.G. could have the abortion.
“I said, ‘Look, if the judge has ruled, it’s time to move on,’ “ Bush said.
But the state’s short-lived attempt to block the abortion infuriated critics, who said it was another case of conservative political leaders putting pro-life idealogy ahead of the law. They compared the intervention with Bush’s attempts to stop a judge from ending the life of severely brain damaged Terri Schiavo, who died March 31 at age 41.
“I think this has just been a terrible manipulation of the courts by DCF to advance a political agenda over the best interests of a 13-year-old child,” said James K. Green, who argued the girl’s abortion rights in the case for the American Civil Liberties union.
It is unconstitutional, he said, for the state to force a 13-year-old to carry a pregnancy to term against her wishes. “I wish the governor had come to that recognition a week ago.”
DCF officials have declined comment on whether they consulted with the governor’s office before going into court to stop the abortion April 26.
The case galvanized both sides of the abortion debate and got national attention. One attorney repeatedly called the courthouse, volunteering to represent the fetus. Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, wrote a letter to the governor asking him not to “surrender this unborn child to the hands of his would-be slayers.” The Palm Beach County Right to Life League plans a protest at the courthouse today.
……Williams and other attorneys who represent foster children have said they have no doubt that girls in state care have a right to make up their own minds without interference. The Florida Supreme Court repeatedly has ruled that minors do not have to get their parents’ permission before having an abortion.
Because L.G.’s parents lost their right to raise her, the lawyers said, the state serves as her legal custodian. But the state has no more right to stop her from ending the pregnancy than her biological parents would, they argued.
But Gov. Jeb Bush and others have said the DCF was acting as a good parent when it asked the court to review the case.
“There is an added responsibility where the state has some degree of responsibility over the well-being of that child,” Bush said Tuesday.
DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi expressed the same view.
“We acted on the best interests of the child,” Hadi said.
……L.G. is unhappy in foster care and has repeatedly run away.
The last time she ran away, she was gone for nearly a month. The agency notified police near the group home she left in Pinellas County, but Alvarez was infuriated that the court wasn’t notified that she was missing. The state, he said, should have done more to find her instead of rushing into court once she was pregnant.
Her mother said L.G. told her a 28- or 30-year-old man picked her up from the streets, gave her alcohol and drugs and had sex with her at his house. The Palm Beach Post is not naming the mother to protect L.G.’s identity.
The woman said she called the police to report a statutory rape, furious that the state considered her an unfit parent but then failed to protect her daughter from a man she believes exploited her.
Beverly Andringa, who supervises the felony division of the Pinellas County State Attorney’s Office, said Tuesday she couldn’t find any reports that L.G. might have been the victim of a crime. But she said she definitely would investigate.
“We don’t have a case, but maybe we should,” Andringa said.
L.G. found out she was pregnant at a doctor’s appointment about three weeks ago. She met with a counselor, weighed the risks and decided that she did not want a baby. A caseworker with a private foster care agency helped her schedule the abortion for April 26.
That same day, DCF attorneys rushed into court on Hadi’s orders, asking Alvarez to issue an emergency order stopping the procedure.
In a recording of that initial hearing obtained by The Post, Alvarez greeted the team of attorneys from the local office of DCF in his court.
“What do I owe this honor to? Three lawyers from the Department of Children and Families? . . . I don’t usually get this type of attention,” Alvarez said.
DCF attorney Jeffrey Gillen cited a state law that prohibits his agency from consenting to an abortion. He said the state had little information about L.G.’s condition. The state didn’t know if she might face complications with the pregnancy or if the fetus was healthy and didn’t believe she was emotionally equipped to make a decision, Gillen said.
Alvarez then asked if the state was asking him to simply postpone the abortion, or block it entirely.
“It would be a permanent injunction your honor,” Gillen said, “and we would …”
Alvarez interrupted.
“A permanent injunction and you’ve already stated you don’t know if this is going to cause her to lose her own life?” he said.
“Oh my.”
……Lillian Tamayo, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of north Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, blasted the state for interfering in the case. L.G. did everything right, Tamayo said — she spoke with an adult, talked to counselors, weighed the risks and then made her own decision.
“Forcing this baby to have a baby — what’s humane about that?” Tamayo said. “I was very disturbed by these actions. It’s just one more example of this governor’s intrusion into personal private family matters.”
Palm Beach County Right to Life League President Frances Fitzgerald said she was disappointed.
“We need to take care of both of them. We need to take care of the baby and the young mother,” she said.
But all said they felt for a girl who said she would rather have an abortion than deliver her own child to the state foster care system.
Though some had offered to take the baby, no one has come forward to adopt L.G.
To recap:
“There is an added responsibility where the state has some degree of responsibility over the well-being of that child,” meaning that once the state allows the child to become a drugged rape victim, impregnated by her attacker, that the state has the added responsibility of blocking any common sense actions that the child might seek to take to try to minimize the eventual fallout from the state’s neglect.
The state is very concerned for L.G.’s well being. (Look, just don’t pay any attention to that part where the state was primarily concerned with stopping the abortion, regardless of how that decision would affect the welfare of the mother, okay?)
Right to lifers talk a good game about taking care of the mother and the baby, but in real life, they consider unwed mothers to be sluts, and they can’t be bothered with messy adoptions involving intelligent teenagers who have enough capacity for independent thought to challenge the status quo.