It's a bittersweet story of folly and coming of age. Bristol's boyfriend is 18. He got her pregnant out of wedlock. But Bristol will carry the baby to term, and, according to her parents, the young couple will marry. A boy and a girl made a mistake that has forced them to become a man and a woman. They are, in Palin's words, shouldering the responsibilities of adulthood.
Yet Palin refuses to treat a young woman in this position as an adult. She thinks the parents of pregnant girls should have veto power over the most life-changing decision their daughters may ever face.
It is a shame that people as intelligent as William Saletan can not seem to grasp the logic of Pro Life parents in cases such as this.
Let me try to explain the logic via a hypothetical. Assume that rather than being pregnant that the young woman has already had the baby. Furthermore, assume that the parents of the young lady learn that the young woman in a moment of emotional despair intends to murder her new born baby. There are legal options available to the parents that would allow them to protect the new born baby and prevent the young lady from making a horrible decision.
Now, I respect that to a pro-choice person my hypothetical has nothing to do with the question at hand because they do not believe that an unborn baby has the same moral standing as a new born baby. However, I think that pro-choice people such as William Saleten should respect that to pro-life parents the hypothetical that I have presented is the moral equivalent as a young woman seeking an abortion.
William Saletan does a great disservice to civil discourse when he claims that parents who seek parental consent laws in order to prevent what they deem to be murder are attempting to turn their children into chattel.
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