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http://news.yahoo.com/pregnant-teen-wins-abortion-battle-150554993--abc-news-topstories.html

But it's not what you think. The parents had attempted to coerce her into an abortion by taking away her car, etc. She wants to have the baby. Court rules in her favor.

Question: is this a pro-choice ruling? I would have to say yes... just a different choice than the one normally made when that term is deployed.

It's a pro life ruling. It took away the poor grandparents' choice and obviously they have the best interest of the girl in mind.

Its not the grandparents' choice to make.  Pro-choice doesn't mean pro-abortion

I have mixed feelings here. Does the girl have a right to make up her own mind? I think she should. But whose name is the car in? Whose name is the phone in? The parents should have the right to take these things away I feel, provided they are the registered owners and payers.

It's a pro-choice ruling. Pro-choice does NOT mean abortions for everybody. It means giving women all of the choices available to them and letting them make the proper decision for their lives. 

Now, with that said the parents absolutely have the right to take away the car and stop paying for her phone if it is actually their items.

This ruling appears to say otherwise.

Now, maybe it's because they went over the top (they took away her car and phone, made her drop out of school and get two jobs) that the judge made this ruling.  I am curious, though: the judge ruled that the parents were attempting to "coerce" the girl into an abortion.  I wonder... if she was pregnant and wanted to get an abortion (against their wishes), would such "coercion" (i.e. removing privileges) also be found illegal?

This leads me to something else. If your parents took away your car & phone, who other than me would start getting a big fuck you attitude? I mean it says they forced her to quit school and get two jobs. If I had no car, no phone and then they tried the rest, I'd be out of the house and filing for emancipation. They had already taken my stuff away. What could they use to force me to do the other stuff?

Yeah. Just read that part. That's bullshit. The parents don't owe her a car or phone. If that's the case I should have sued my parents every time they took away my car for not getting the grades they demanded.

If she was clever - and manipulative - enough (and didn't have a known history of such to her parents), she could have forced her parents to give back all that they took away during the attempt at coercion. All she'd have to do is find the greasiest looking "slightly older but not legal adult" total scumbag-looking dude. Dregs of society type... She brings him home, has him help her start packing her stuff. When the parents demand to know what was going on, she tells them that she is moving in with the aforementioned John Q. Scumbag, and that they and the baby were going to start a new life together.

Shit...she could get a new car out of that deal.

Definately a pro-choice ruling and consistant with other rulings that a parent can not mandate nor prevent their minor child from having an abortion. 

This case is a bit different than the converse. 

I can understand a parent telling their child if you want to have the child you need to get a job (or multiple jobs) to help support the paying of the bills that this child will bring.  And unless you are earning enough money from your job to pay for the all the child's bills plus your cell phone bill, then no cell phone for you. 

It's Pro-Choice, no question.  I don't know that I agree with the ruling.  Parents should be able to provide certain things (car, phone) at their own choice.  Things like dropping out of school are more of a gray area.

Pro-choice all the way. She chose to keep her child. I applaud her for that.  I don't hold the parents as villains either. They were only doing what they felt was right. The law disagreed. I hope her parents realize that they have a daughter who is responsible enough to want to keep her child. And come to grips to support her. She's going to need it.

Yea... I know that. I was trying to be funny. This is an odd circumstance for sure. I'm surprised it made it to court but the fact it did makes me wonder how much the parents will support her and her new child. I actually would have found it odd if they made her have made her have one.

You hit it right on the head.  Pro choice means exactly how it reads.  In this case, the girl's choice was to keep the baby.  That is her choice and no one else's.  She has to go through the agony of carrying and delivering the baby so it's her choice.

My recollection of the law is that parents have a fundamental right to govern their children's conduct, so that they can put (or could put) the kibosh on their minor child's obtaining an abortion. However, simultaneously, courts *had* ruled that because abortion was (after Roe, but before Casey) a fundamental right, that there had to be a mechanism to obtain the abortion. So, normally a writ-style petition could be made to the local court and, after a hearing, an injunction against the parents would issue, assuming the minor child wasn't incapable of rationally making the decision (and by that I mean honestly bonkers).

Now, after Casey, and especially after Gonzales v. Carhart, abortion isn't a fundamental right any more. So, given that, which side wins? I don't think anyone's challenged it, however, I could see a court indicating that, in the balance, abortion loses over the parents' fundamental right to govern their child's conduct. Fundamental rights, after all, go above and beyond Constitutional rights, as they pre-exist them in our jurisprudential scheme.

However, this ruling seems to indicate the opposite: the minor child's choice will be honored, rather than the parents.

I, obviously, like the ruling; however, I think the ruling is short-sighted. If a child now has some sort of compelling interest (like bringing an unborn baby to term, or going to school, or whatever) and is a minor, and their parents want to govern them in a way that is contrary to that compelling interest - can they still control their child? I would point at this ruling (and really, once its appealed, the ruling that affirms it on appeal) and say: "No." That may be problematic. I do *not* want courts to suddenly be able to stick their nose into what should be a solely parental decision. Especially when it comes to important things (as in important to the parents). Thoughts?

In addition, I applaud this little girl. She's doing her part. We're going to have a population crunch in the next 50 years, during which time our social safety nets may very well permanently fail. That could've been avoided had the Boomers/Gen X reproduced at a respectable level. Now, their failure to do so is not totally their fault. They bought into the prevailing thought of the day: the Sexual Revolution, which, had for a long time been brewing and finally burst through the old edifice of Judeo-Christian values. Sadly, that means the burden to reproduce and create enough workers for the social safety nets, (amongst other things) which will at that time be burdened w/ protecting the Boomers/Gen X in their last years,will fall onto us Gen Y/Millennial people. Grand.

^^^ For what it's worth, I barebacked my way through Europe from '82-'87, so while I've never been married, I am fairly certain I've contributed genetic material to the worker pool... ;)

You need to have a morning show. :)

This is consistent with my understanding of the current state of law: there is no legislation (that I am aware of) that requires parental consent, only parental notification.  IANAL, but I believe the (constitutional) case law is fairly settled in determining that even minors have the right to make their own choice re: abortion, at least to a point where even the red states won't attempt to outright prohibit minor consent to abortion.

As for fundamental vs. constitutional rights, I am unaware of any case law in which established constitutional rights are overturned in favor of fundamental rights, as you suggest.

That's the real problem, here.  If the girl was the registered title holder of the car and the cellphone account holder, then fine; otherwise, it seems absurd in the extreme to say that the parents are forced to pay for the girl's car and cellphone when her conduct is unsatisfactory to them.  If she wants to get emancipated (or enter foster care), I'm all for it, but otherwise, I'd say "my house, my rules" applies.

Furthermore, what happens when the baby is born?  Are the parents then allowed to take away their daughter's car and cell phone, or does she get to keep the car and have them pay for the phone indefinitely?  They forced her to drop out of school and take two jobs, but after the baby is born, are they required to provide financial support for the baby, or is she?  If the latter, what if she needs to drop out of school to be able to afford the baby?

The social safety nets of the richest nation on the planet (with the largest and most expensive military on the planet) will only fail if we choose to allow them to.  Let's not divert this thread into a fiscal prioritization discussion.

However, I do find it interesting that you applaud this minor child (who is still in high school) for deciding to have a child on a population crunch basis.  Are the much-reviled "welfare queens" also doing their part to preserve the republic?