Episode one of the television panel discussion Madeleine participated in on parental consent/notification for abortion is now available for viewing online here at Pacific Viewpoint TV.
The show runs for 30 minutes; in this episode Madeleine features as an audience member (panelists are Bev Adair, Paul Hutchison, Reverend Tavale Matai’a) and she goes a round with the Member of Parliament for Hunua, Dr Paul Hutchison. (Originally she went two rounds with him but her second spiel, where she dealt to his inadequate response to her question, only got as far as the editing room.)
In the next episode, Madeleine actually is a panel member and she gets a lot more speaking time. The second episode will air Tuesday 15 December at 7:30pm on Triangle TV also on Stratos (Freeview 21 & Sky Digital 89) on Wednesday 16 December at 8pm or you can catch it here next Wednesday.
Anyway, enjoy and feel free to make use of the button that permits you to make a comment to the show.
Tags: Abortion · Bev Adair · MandM on Video · Pacific Viewpoint · Paul Hutchison · Reverend Tavale Matai'a24 Comments
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Firstly, I think Madeleine did very well as did a couple of other s on the panel. Unfortunately. I think too many issues are getting bundled into one. I understand there was a private members bill in 2004 for parents to be informed if their daughter under the age of 16 wanted an abortion. I do not believe consent was part of it. This bill was defeated.
This program was about girls or young women just under 18. I am not sure if parents of 16 and 17 years olds were meant to be notified and give consent or just be notified. I doubt if there would be much public support for such a law change. However, I do think there would be much public support for parental notification for girls under the age of consent which is 16 still despite Goff floating the idea of dropping it to 12.
Madeleine do you know what the bill in 2004 called for – notification or notification and consent?
Madeleine cut through the waffling around the issue and nailed Paul’s ass to the wall. His response was pathetic!
I’ve seen very few people speak as articulately and clearly as Madeleine did. Outstanding. I am looking forward to next week’s program if her performance in this was anything to go by Paul is in doo doo.
Paul, you call that a response? Madeleine’s point is that the state would only have a reason to operate in secrecy from the parents of a minor where there is evidence of abuse. You reply was to say that people rejected compulsory parental information because well, you know, in some cases there are abusive family situations and we can’t go informing them…
Were you even listening, Paul?
Glenn, do you know what the bill in 2004 called for – notification or notification and consent? I think the age would have been under 16. Many 17 year olds are li9ving away from home.
I find it interesting to know that the law or recommendation (that later become the law) was started in 1970’s
Great work Madeleine.
Looking forward to the sequal next week.
.-= My last blog-post ..Dear New Zealand Cricket… =-.
I commented on another thread about the show.
Madeleine on Pacific Viewpoint TV on Abortion & Parental Consent
http://www.mandm.org.nz/2009/12/madeleine-on-pacific-viewpoint-on-abortion-and-parental-consent.html#comments
I am a little disappointed no one has addressed the issues I raised.
It is outrageous that both parents are not notified before underage girls obtain abortions. However, the panel aside from Dr Hutchison appear to be arguing that girls or young women under the age of 18 should require parent(s)’ consent before they obtain and abortion.
If this is the case I doubt if there would be much public support for such a unworkable law. However, I believe there would be considerable support for a law change that would require parents to be notified before a underage girl (16) obtains an abortion.
Surely it makes sense to lobby for a law change that is workable and has public support.
Chuck Bird,
You got a very good point there. I think many people categorize 18 as adults. Would 14/15 instead of 16 make it even stronger case?
Overall after watching the video, I think they are a strong arguments for the law to be changed.
I like how that pastor guy keep reiterating that there must be a system to protect the girls from abusive parents. I think it’s very important to reiterate that point because that concern was supposedly why the law was adopted.
“Would 14/15 instead of 16 make it even stronger case?”
Maybe, but there should be a logical reason for the age. !6 is the legal age of consent.
I just heard on the news that someone 25 got sentenced to 2 years for having sex with a 12 year old girl. That is rape. 12 is too young to give consent. The sentence should be the same as rape or more. I doubt if we well hear anything from the anti-smacker including the Commissioner of Children about this wholly inadequate sentence.
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Chuck
My position is fairly simple: if abortion is going to be a legal form of surgery, then I think the rules viz a viz consent should be the same as all other legal forms of surgery.
Under section 36 of the Care of Children’s act any person over the age of 16 can consent to medical treatment. If the patient is under 16, then consent of a parent or guardian is required, there are certain allowances for the courts to intervene if a parent is negligent or abusive and for doctors to certain types of life saving treatment in cases where they do not have time to get consent, but subject to these provisions this is the law and it applies to “any medical or dental procedure”. Section 38 however provides a single exception, that of abortion, under the law for this type of medical procedure and for this procedure only, abortion. For this type of procedure only, consent of a parent or guardian is not required even if the patient is a minor, the minors consent is deemed to be the consent of a competent party.
I see no reason why abortion should be treated differently from any other medical or dental procedure. It seems to me the obvious thing to do is simply repeal section 38, we do not need a special law governing consent for abortions we simply deal with it the same way any other surgical procedure would be dealt with under section 36. Now if you or any one else thinks that this makes the age of consent to high, the solution would be to make the age of consent for all forms of surgery lower. If it’s to low then one should make the age of consent for all forms of surgery higher. These strike me as simply general questions about the age of consent in general and nothing to do with the issue of abortion.
What the politicians who adopted this legislation need to do is give a cogent reason why abortion is treated differently to any and every other medical procedure. Is it that minors are suddenly more mature and autonomous when it comes to this particular question that they can give competent consent but cannot on any other issue? Obviously not, is it that that there is a unique risk of parental abuse here, again obviously not, just as a women in rare circumstances may be pregnant do to incest, its also true that in other circumstances, (which are probably less rare) there need of medical treatment is due to parental abuse. If this fact does not lead the government to abolish the age of consent requirements for other treatments it should not here.
Until I see some justification of this sort, my position is simple, don’t have any special age of consent for abortion at all, simply follow the normal rules that apply in every other situation, if these rules are flawed fix them, don’t come up with special arbitrary rules for abortion.
.-= My last blog-post ..Hadouken Punch =-.
Matt, your argument is logical but what are you trying to achieve – prove you are right or get a law change?
You should have seen with the smacking debate as well as the ETS, that logic and consistency is not what determines legislation.
At present laws are made by Members of Parliament, usually they vote along party lines but sometimes they are able to vote supposedly according to their conscience.
Either way it is highly unlikely that the majority of MPs would vote for the legislation you would like.
I would like to see legislation that requires parents to be notified if their daughter if under 16 is seeking an abortion. I assume you would as well.
My question to you is how is the best way to achieve this?
When you take into account that nearly all political parties are liberal as are the media it will be very difficult to get legislation passed to require parental notification. It will be almost impossible to get legislation passed to require parental consent.
I believe if the law was changed to require parents to be notified there would be very few cases where the daughter insisted on an abortion despite one or both parent being opposed.
Would it not make more sense to go for notification only and see how big a problem young girls insisting on an abortion against parents wishes is.
“My position is fairly simple: if abortion is going to be a legal form of surgery, then I think the rules viz a viz consent should be the same as all other legal forms of surgery.”
As usual Matt you see things very much in black and white…. even people who believe in legal abortion realize that an abortion is a very different procedure,with different emotional and cultural aspects to it that most surgery does not have.
“I see no reason why abortion should be treated differently from any other medical or dental procedure. ” – is a statement that almost no-one would agree with, on either side of the debate – so using it as a starting point is not going to convince anyone.
Strict logical consistency is often not the best tool for dealing with a complicated world.
Anon, you raise some good points. What is you position and reasoning regarding parental notification?
I think the issue as to what the law ought to be and what realistically can be pased in New Zealand as we approach 2010 are different questions.
Matt is philosophically trained, I am philosophically influenced so we are focused on the former in our arguments. I think it is best to have a conversation at that level so that you are clear as to what and where precisely you are compromising when you contemplate actual policy.
“As usual Matt you see things very much in black and white…. even people who believe in legal abortion realize that an abortion is a very different procedure,with different emotional and cultural aspects to it that most surgery does not have.”
Well surely that makes it even more important that parents be informed, after all, they are the ones who will be left to deal with the cultural and emotional consequences that aborting an unborn child will have upon their daughter and their family.
Madeleine, I would agree with you if this issue was just discussed on your blog as a philosophical issue. However, this is about a TV debate. You should be able to address the arguments against a law change.
How would a law that required consent work if parents disagree whether they are living together or apart? As far as I know an operation only requires the signature of one parent if they are not living together.
In my view parents not only be notified in the case of abortion but also is a girl wants to go on the pill. There is also a good case for parental consent for so called sex education based on harm minimisation.
I don’t see the need to over complicate things. Law works best when we have general principles and I think it would here too. What I want to see is a law that treats surgery and medical treatment for minors equally; a law that does not single out some procedures and treat them separately for arbitrary ad hoc reasons.
Consent needs to be given for a minor to have paracetamol or a wart removed through to major organ transplants, heart and brain surgery. Sometimes the reason the minor needs medical treatment is a result of abuse, when that appears to be the case there are procedures in place. So why does contraception, birth control & abortion get treated differently?
I think if we simply removed the ring-fencing of the laws around these things and handed the default control back to the parents, in the same manner the parents have default control for medical treatments over their children currently, we’d have a much better, fairer and just system.
How would a law that required consent work if parents disagree whether they are living together or apart?
Same way it does in every other case where the procedure is some form of surgery other than abortion. Currently cases occur where one parent wants the child to undergo some medical procedure the other does not, the law already has procedures for addressing cases like this.
In my view parents not only be notified in the case of abortion but also is a girl wants to go on the pill. There is also a good case for parental consent for so called sex education
I agree in fact I would make the same line of argument, given parental consent and notification is needed for all other forms of medication and a child is recognized by law as lacking competence to make medical decisions in every other case why the exception in this case.
For example under current law any intercourse with a minor is rape, children up till a certain age are seen as incapable of being able to make valid decisions viz a viz sex, so the question that needs to be posed is this? Do they agree with the law in this regard, if no then they should decriminalize pedophilia, which they would never do. If they do then why do they think the same child is capable of making a decision about whether to have protected or unprotected sex? How can the same person be incapable of making decisions about whether to have sex but also able to make decisions about sex?
.-= My last blog-post ..Rangiora New Life College, Religion and Discrimination =-.
even people who believe in legal abortion realize that an abortion is a very different procedure,with different emotional and cultural aspects to it that most surgery does not have.
That might be a valid point if I had suggested there was no differences of any sort between abortion and other forms of surgery. But I wasn’t suggesting this, I was suggesting there is nothing about abortion that means the rules governing consent are any different.
Do you disagree? If so can you please tell me what is it about abortion that means that people can give valid consent to it at any age, when they cannot for any other surgery?
Is it perhaps that the issues of whether or not to have one are more simple and straightforward than they are for every other surgery ? Obviously the answers to these questions are clearly negative. If you know of some cultural or emotional factor that suddenly makes a minor capable of giving valid consent I’d be really interested to here about it.
“I see no reason why abortion should be treated differently from any other medical or dental procedure. ” – is a statement that almost no-one would agree with, on either side of the debate – so using it as a starting point is not going to convince anyone.
Well if I had said this in an absolute sense, meaning no different in any way at all you might have a point but I didn’t as noted above.
But if you want an argument from premises that both sides of the debate agree people who believe in legal abortion, typically say that they believe abortion should never be performed on someone without valid consent; moreover if we were not talking about abortion, they would typically also affirm that that a minor cannot give valid consent to medical procedures. So the basic premises I am employing here are not hugely controversial even from a pro choice perspective.
” Strict logical consistency is often not the best tool for dealing with a complicated world.”
I take it when you say this you mean to refute ( and hence contradict) the claim that consistency is always the best tool for dealing with a complex world. If so it seems to me that you rejecting as false views inconsistent with your own.
How can you do this in such a complex world?
.-= My last blog-post ..Rangiora New Life College, Religion and Discrimination =-.
Matt, if you wish draw an analogy between abortion and other medical procedures I am pretty sure a child under 16 can be compelled to have an operation against their will if it is for their own good. Their may be some exceptions. I do not think many people would advocate forcible abortion for an underage girl even if she was raped and decided she did not want an abortion. While most people would not support an abortion in these circumstances some would and they may be parents.
If notification was compulsory I doubt if many underage girls would insist on an abortion against the wishes of both parents.
If parental authority was not undermined by schools there would be less girls risking a pregnancy. When schools tell underage girls they will arrange an abortion without parental notification they encourage promiscuity.
Chuck
You write ”if you wish draw an analogy between abortion and other medical procedures I am pretty sure a child under 16 can be compelled to have an operation against their will if it is for their own good. Their may be some exceptions. I do not think many people would advocate forcible abortion for an underage girl even if she was raped and decided she did not want an abortion.” several things can be said here.
First, you state that “a child under 16 can be compelled to have an operation against their will if it is for their own good”. This might be true if the child is five or six, but not if it is post puberty say 14 or 15 particularly if the surgery is intrusive and the condition is not life threatening. But these are precisely the situations abortion almost always occurs in.
But more importantly, I said that I think abortion is analogous in terms of the ability of a minor to consent to it. There may or may not be all sorts of differences between abortion and other procedures, as far as I can tell however the ability of a minor to consent to the procedure remains the same, this is because the ability to give valid consent depends on a persons neurological and psychological development, not on any features of the surgery per se.
Hence my argument is not threatened by cases which show differences between abortion and other forms of surgery, all I need is the position that it does not differ in such a way that it changes a persons ability to consent and it clearly does not.
.-= My last blog-post ..Madeleine on TV Tonight on Abortion & Parental Consent =-.
MandM’s Madeleine on a TV panel about abortion …
Madeleine Flannagan of MandM.org Blog has just appeared on a very interesting TV panel on Abortion and Parental concent on Pacific Viewpoint.
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Ohmigosh, you read them, too? That’s one of my favorite blogs ever! I knew about her appearing on…