Florida, America’s Wang, has been the most shameless corner of the vast right-wing conspiracy for years now. A phenomenon recently lampooned by Tom Tomorrow, policy makers in Florida pick the most ridiculous fights to stoke the flames of their supporters’ torch-and-pitchfork ensembles, even if the fights are completely contradictory to their own rhetoric.
Now comes the latest, a judge has ruled that a 13-year-old girl cannot decide for herself to have an abortion. Judge Ronald Alvarez ruled that the girl is too young and immature to make the momentous decision to have an abortion by herself, plus, he claims he is concerned about the potential effect of an abortion on her physical and emotional health. Now, first of all, a full-term pregnancy and labor is a lot riskier for a little girl than a first-trimester abortion, and, secondly, if the girl is too immature to choose an abortion, how in the hell could she be considered mature enough for motherhood? But, most galling is the fact that under the law in Florida, which does not have a “parental consent” requirement for minors seeking abortions, the choice is the girl’s, and hers alone. Judge Alvarez is, in fact, engaging in judicial activism!
What’s really going on here is that Jeb Bush is pandering to the same “culture of life” crowd that made Terri Schiavo’s last days such a media circus. Under his orders, the Department of Children and Families, sought the initial restraining order preventing the girl, a runaway who is under DCF foster care, from getting an abortion. The DCF cites a contradictory law that prohibits the department from consenting to an abortion for a minor in state care (so, kids who live with their families can choose for themselves, but kids under state care need state permission?!). The injunction is temporary, pending psychological exams that the department requested and the judge has granted. The girl, who is 14 weeks pregnant, is in a race against the clock before state law tells her she is too far along to get an abortion. Bush and the DCF intend to run down the clock.
Ironically, as the Terri Schiavo circus was going on, I remarked to some friends that those of us on the civil rights side of the culture war need to be as cut-throat and calculated as the right, and named this very scenario, a young girl being prevented by the state from having an abortion in time, threatening to force her to have a child that she could not possibly care for when she herself is a child, as the kind that we could champion in the same manner as the right exploited Schiavo. Zany Florida just made this scenario real. It’s time for some wacky protester hijinks from our side.