Anger at Florida verdict
16-year-old ‘not mature enough’ for abortion
8/18/2022 3:36 am
Florida allows abortions up to week 15, but minors may need court approval. In the case of a 16-year-old, the judges reject the application with questionable justification. The case becomes a stir in the United States.
A court ruling in the US state of Florida that a 16-year-old is not “mature enough” for an abortion has sparked outrage in the United States. “This is a dangerous and terrible example of Florida’s war on women,” wrote US Rep. Lois Frankel at Twitter. “If a young girl is too immature to decide to have an abortion, how can she be able to carry a baby?”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal called the decision of a Florida appeals court “disgusting”. She was “angry” that a teenager was being forced to give birth to a child.
On Monday, an appeals court denied a 16-year-old the right to an abortion, upholding a first-instance judgment. The ten-week pregnant teenager had told the court that she was “not ready to have a baby”. She still goes to school, has no job and the child’s father cannot help her. However, the court of first instance ruled that the young person had not “proved clearly and convincingly that she was sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy”. The Court of Appeal upheld this decision.
In Florida, minors need parental consent to have an abortion. However, the young person in this case has no parents. She lives with a relative and has a state-appointed guardian. The girl therefore applied to the court for permission to have an abortion. According to the newspaper “Politico” most recently, around 200 such applications were submitted by minors each year and approved in 90 percent of the cases.
Abortion rights are one of the most controversial socio-political issues in the United States. The country’s Supreme Court in June overturned a nearly 50-year landmark decision that enshrined a nationwide fundamental right to abortion. As a result, numerous conservative-governed states have begun to drastically restrict access to abortions. In Florida, abortions are legal up to the 15th week.