Parents Forcing Their Teen To Get An Abortion Have Agreed To Get Their Hands Off Her Body

forced abortionThe unidentified pregnant 16-year-old who was reportedly being forced to have an abortion by her parents will be threatened no longer. The latest development in the completely anti-choice manipulation of pro-choice legislation reveals that the abortion-pushing parents have officially agreed to knock it off. Her body. Not yours.

CNN reports that yesterday in a state court, the girl’s mother and father agreed not to force her to abort. Stephen Casey, a lawyer and founder of The Texas Center for Defense of Life, described it as an “agreed order.” The lawyer reportedly argued that access to abortion doesn’t equal insta-abortions for all unintended pregnancies:

Casey had argued that Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision that guaranteed women the right to have an abortion, works both ways.

“Roe was about the right to choose,” Casey told CNN prior to the order being signed. “This young woman has the right to choose to have her child.”

Since the 16-year-old and her boyfriend, Evan Madison, learned that they were expecting, they “were always determined to have the baby.”  Abortion was never on the table for the couple.  The two plan to marry, which they can legally do in Texas with parental consent. But good luck getting that at this point.

The divorced parents were seated separately from the teen couple all through the court proceedings. They have denied all of the following allegations:

The lawsuit alleged that the girl’s mother threatened to “slip (the teen) an abortion pill,” took her daughter’s phone and car and kept her home from school to punish her for choosing not to abort her fetus. The mother told the teen that she was “making the biggest mistake of her life” by choosing to have the child and that the mother herself had undergone numerous abortions, so her daughter should, too, the lawsuit said.

It added that the pregnant girl’s father told her he “was going to look into canceling” her health insurance. He texted his daughter that she “needs an ass whoopin’,” the document said.

The parents told their daughter she could “continue to live in misery” in their home or she could “have the abortion and tell everyone it was a miscarriage,” the lawsuit added.

In addition to calling the allegations “baseless,” mom and dad have asked that their fees for retaining an attorney be reimbursed. So far, that’s not happening.

The lawyers for the teenage girl, now 10 weeks pregnant, were initially contacted by the boyfriend’s mother. Upon explaining the situation and threats to The Texas Center for Defense of Life, lawyers agreed to defend the girl free of charge.

But despite the generosity of the center, the legal team assigned to the girl have really dropped the ball when protecting her identity:

“Under Texas procedure when it’s a case involving and alleging abuse of a minor, the minor’s identity should be protected, and the girl’s attorneys might have violated that,” said Susan Hays, an attorney and legal adviser to Jane’s Due Process, an Austin-based nonprofit organization that represents pregnant minors in the state.

Jane’s Due Process, which supports the right to legal abortion, is not involved in this case.

“There’s an understanding that we will not make law on the back of a 16-year-old girl, and that’s what her attorneys are doing,” said Hays. “I’m appalled that they’ve done this to this girl. Putting the girl’s parents’ names in court documents … her attorneys have done a lousy job protecting her confidentiality.”

Hays said the lawyers could have used the parents’ initials or included less detail about the family.

No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

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(photo: Dominik Michalek / Shutterstock)

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