Topic : News, Politics and Current Events

Yes, there'd be less reporting..so that is a bad idea.  Scott...wonder if he did drive as well?  Wish they'd said more about that party...I was surprised that Dr. Phil read through it all, and didn't come down harder on Scott...just that he was dumb...I knew that, I'm not a PhD. either. 

I would want MORE of the resposibility on Scott if he knew her age, but he didn't according to the show.  No one has more responsibility than the parents...

Oh, I watched a tape of 20/20.  It was on Friday when I saw Billy Joel, but a friend taped it for me...similar situation...an older guy, dating a younger girl...he was 19, she was 15.  Mom knew, also knew that they had sex...went along with it...until one day, she had a fight with her daughter..pissed off, goes to the police, reports it...and then, cools off, tries to pull the charges.  Cannot do it, so the guy does time, is a registered sex offender...and when the girl turned 18, she left home, married him and they have 4 children.  John Stossel told the lead D.A. it was a DUMB LAW...So this really is a hot button topic...did you happen to watch 20/20 July 18 of this year?...got me thinking.  The more I think, the more confused I get...

Yes, there'd be less reporting..so that is a bad idea.  Scott...wonder if he did drive as well?  Wish they'd said more about that party...I was surprised that Dr. Phil read through it all, and didn't come down harder on Scott...just that he was dumb...I knew that, I'm not a PhD. either. 

I would want MORE of the resposibility on Scott if he knew her age, but he didn't according to the show.  No one has more responsibility than the parents...

Oh, I watched a tape of 20/20.  It was on Friday when I saw Billy Joel, but a friend taped it for me...similar situation...an older guy, dating a younger girl...he was 19, she was 15.  Mom knew, also knew that they had sex...went along with it...until one day, she had a fight with her daughter..pissed off, goes to the police, reports it...and then, cools off, tries to pull the charges.  Cannot do it, so the guy does time, is a registered sex offender...and when the girl turned 18, she left home, married him and they have 4 children.  John Stossel told the lead D.A. it was a DUMB LAW...So this really is a hot button topic...did you happen to watch 20/20 July 18 of this year?...got me thinking.  The more I think, the more confused I get...

Funny how hearing other opinions really gets you thinking.  I really couldn't have an abortion, unless the conditions were extreme.  The fetus Is a life...and yes, suicide is illegal, but abortion is not.  Suicide...it has to be done by a person who is in such a dark place, and for them, it's against the law to end their own life!?!  I wonder what the law can really do when the suicide is successful?  You can't arrest the dead...so, it's a dumb law.  If you attempt suicide, I know here, you are put into a hospital until you can be considered safe...Usually it's 72 hour observation, like that will stop it. 

You know what gets me?  The mandated reporting laws that therapists must follow...they have to report child abuse, a threat of murder or a desire to commit suicide.  I can see reporting child abuse, and a threat of murder...but if someone comes in depressed and says that he/she wants to kill him/herself, it gets reported.  Kinda scares away a person looking for help...they say it's to protect the person, because they are a danger to themselves...sounds politically correct, BUT if you felt that way, and knew you'd be reported, would you go for therapy?  Doesn't not going only help to increase the suicide rate?  People fearing that they'll get turned in, so they stay depressed and kill themselves?

I so disagee with abortion as birth control, but hell, it's being done.  If we had laws that made it legal to abort only if it were health, rape or condom (birth control) failure, there would be a lot of reported failures...suddenly the pill was not so effective?  And the good old days...the big bucks were spent on the back street doctors who did them.  My Mother-in-law had two of them around 1950.  I almost dropped dead when she told me...very Catholic Italian...rosary beads and crosses all over the place, and this she confided to me...and her sister..not so lucky, died after a back street procedure. 

We don't put too much value on human life if it's inconvenient, no?

Just an FYI, suicide is not against the law anymore in any state in the US.  Here is what wikipedia has to say about it.  I was curious so I decided to check it out.

In the United States, suicide has never been punished as a crime nor penalized by property forfeiture or ignominious burial.[citation needed Historically, various states listed the act as a felony, but all were reluctant to enforce it. By 1963, six states still considered attempted suicide a crime (North and South Dakota, Washington, New Jersey, Nevada, and Oklahoma that repealed its law in 1976). By the early 1990s only two US states still listed suicide as a crime, and these have since removed that classification. In some U.S. states, suicide is still considered an unwritten "common law crime," that is, a crime based on the law of old England as stated in Blackstone's Commentaries. (So held the Virginia Supreme Court in Wackwitz v. Roy in 1992.) As a common law crime, suicide can bar recovery for the family of the suicidal person in a lawsuit unless the suicidal person can be proven to have been "of unsound mind." That is, the suicide must be proven to have been an involuntary, not voluntary, act of the victim in order for the family to be awarded money damages by the court. This can occur when the family of the deceased sues the caregiver (perhaps a jail or hospital) for negligence in failing to provide appropriate care.[4 Some legal scholars look at the issue as one of personal liberty. According to Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU, "The idea of government making determinations about how you end your life, forcing you...could be considered cruel and unusual punishment in certain circumstances, and Justice Stevens in a very interesting opinion in a right-to-die [case raised the analogy."[5

In many jurisdictions medical facilities are empowered or required to commit anyone whom they believe to be suicidal for evaluation and treatment. See Code 5150 for example.

I don't think a 15 should be dating a 19 year olds, and I would like to ask that mother what the hell is wrong with you letting your little girl date a 19 year old. Then you what to ask the parents of the 19 year old why in the hell would you not warn him of the dangers in doing such a stupid thing, risking himself in such a way.

The law is there for a reason and it makes no exceptions because the girls parents are stupid and say that it is ok today.

I have a 14 year old daughter that is developed in every way but  she thinks like a 14 year old, can she date NO would I let her date a 19 or 18 or a senior in HS that she will be attending this year, NO WAY in Hell.  But these rules are not a surprise to her, these are rules that we have talked about many times and right now I don't get a fight about them, but I now the day will come when she will ask and new rules will aply, what they will be are still in the air and not quite ready and agreed apond by her dad and I. lol.... we will see . But I do know this I am not have boy friends over on a day to day bases or weekly either at   15 I'll take her to the mall or to the movies with said boy friend maybe. and she is not able to go to his house at

all!!! and just hang around .

 some have asked how can you enforce that, as a parent you just do, you put the work into it.

i have always been consistent with her, so that should help.

I think when we can identify with a person that has had abortion and we know them as good people it harder to call it wrong, I had a friend at 18 or 19  who had one, she too came from a Irish and Italian Catholic family.  but now that I'm older and I look at things differently I wonder, What she really did was make her life easier for herself, spared herself the shame to her self and family and  9 months of pregancy.

She knew the risk she was taking in having sex, but  was it that she just didn't want to pay the consequences for that actions, took the easy way out. she could of had the child and have it up, instead of a abortion and killing what she knew was  a out come of her action.

Then you hear women say I wouldn't be able to give the child away if I had it, so they choose to have a abortion because it is easier on them. I find that wrong now to the core.

suicided is a action of a sick mind andits against the law, Abortion is a action of a health mind and ending life to make their life easier,  Dosn't sound right.......

Still on that fence on abortion , but I really don't know why. Isn't very clear? its a selfish act, and done to make ones life easier and not taking responsiblitys for ones actions?

J.

I agree with you, and that's why I couldn't have an abortion.  Then we look at Planned Parenthood, performing them on young teens...makes me wonder...

With so many couples really wanting to adopt, why terminate when there ARE better alternatives?  To make life easier...maybe that IS the problem today...everything is too damn easy. 

You just wonder how to draw the legal line...with rape, there IS the "morning after" pill, but you have to get it on time, and after being raped, the victim could be in trauma.  Health reasons are a valid reason to abort...now young teens...which is worse?  Having to carry to term, or getting an abortion which can leave mental and physical scarring...

I'm on that fence because the back street boys will be collecting the big bucks again, and women may die from the procedures like years back. 

Oh, good point on physician assisted suicide.  It's murder to help end the terminally ill, who have nothing but pain to look foreward to, but it's legal to perform abortions?  I am 100% in favor of helping end a hopeless life, IF it is the patients' request.  The baby has no say...I'm slipping off the fence...just thought of my sonagrams...got chills!

You have it right!  The hanging out...not good, especially at the guy's house...wonder, who's home and are they on top of things.  I'm with you on the dating...first year of High School...day to day boyfriend?  NO GOOD...it leads to...well we know where it can, so best to be safe.  I agree that you have to put in the time, more now than before, just in different ways.  Yes, rules will change as she gets older, but you'll work it out.  I was UBER PARANOID, for obvious reasons, but we all made it through alive and still LIKING each other.

My son has been BRANDED with warnings now that he is 18...not sexually active...yet, but when he finds the right girl, I think it won't be long.  Honest to God, I have told him about the age thing...do not THINK...KNOW her age, and know her...like no one nighters...and always use protection even if it's been a long time relationship.  This sounds soooo sexist, but telling my girls was easier...sometimes I start to get embarassed, then remember, he's MY baby, and I'm going to keep him as safe as I did the girls. 

back ally abortions, that is scary and helps keep me on the fence.  But if we look at most laws they have reasons behind them, to insure the innocent is protected, this law does not protect the innocent, if anything it gives a get out of jail free card to the person who by their own action found themself in this state.

Abortion is a act of selfishness  pure and simple, I can find no other reason for one to have a abortion, except in rape or health issues.

This is not the 80s on back, where one felt social pressures and being outcast for being pregant, or ruining their futures if it was known that they are pregant. Parents don't hang their heads in shame when their daughters come to them in this situation any longer, abotion no longer helps protect the women from long term harm emotionally or mentally.The Stigma is gone, so maybe the law to the right to abortion should be to.

This law protect the person that keeps making bad choices in their lifes and truely hurts the innocent.

If they have to pay nine months of their life for their actions and bring a baby to term and then give or keep the baby, that would be a result to their action and little to pay for such action, and the innocent doesn't pay for someone elses action.

J.