Kansas Att. Gen. demands teenage medical records

[TC]

TOPEKA, Kan. - An appeal of a federal judge's order against requiring physicians and other professionals in Kansas to report consensual sex among teenagers is highly likely, Attorney General Phill Kline said Wednesday...

...Marten's decision Tuesday came in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based advocacy group, on behalf of a Kansas City health clinic and 11 physicians, nurses, psychologists, social workers and sex educators.

They sued Kline and Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston after Kline issued a 2003 legal opinion on the law requiring that suspected sexual abuse be reported.

In it, Kline noted that sex involving someone under 16 is illegal and said such crimes are "inherently injurious." Thus, he said, reporting is required when a girl is pregnant, when someone under 16 seeks treatment for a sexually transmitted disease or when such a minor discloses being sexually active...

..."If you tell that kid, 'If you come in for birth control, we're going to report you,' that kid won't come in for birth control," said center attorney Bonnie Scott Jones.

Full article: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/n...al/14381061.htm

Related articles about the same case: http://www.slate.com/id/2135328/
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2...24/211154.shtml


I think this is just so fucked up and sick and such a clear example of how american social conservatives target teen girls with no regard to their right to privacy or health care.

There isn't enough of a reaction against social conservatives specifically targeting teenagers (or, straight female teenagers specifically), its great that people talk about their opposition to abortions and homosexuality in adults...but they've not be truely effective politically in either case whereas they're actually able to do real damage to teen girl's privacy, sexual, reproductive and health rights. It feels like tacit approval that they're not criticized for it directly enough by the socially liberal media.

[VermontLeft]

Absolutely digusting :angry:

but thats what happens when we allow the government to make sex illegal. i mean that its actually against the law to have consensual sex at 15 and that now the goverment wants to keep records on this shit is just fucking sick :angry:

the first victims of sexism are always the girls because they have even less power tha nwomen. if were gonna be serious about feminism we need to fight all assaults no matter the age of the victim.

[LSD]

What's truly sick is that the government has a decent chance of winning here. After all, from a purely legislative perspective, any indication of "underage" sexual activity is technically "sign of a crime".

Ultimately, therefore, I think that VermontLeft is absolutely correct in tracing this latest abuse back to the inherent injustice of American-style "age of consent" laws. After all, once the state establishes that it has the "right" to legislate intrinsically personal and consentual activity, it will inevitably attempt to enforce its "moral" precepts on such activity as well.

Remember, the US is the only industrialized country that actually enforces these kinds of "illegal sex" laws; and accordingly is the only western country that would dream of trying to force its doctors to reveal priviledged patient information.

In Canada, for instance, once a child turns 14, they become, medically-speaking, an adult in all capacity, and cannot be subject to any "protective" state intervention.

For whatever reason (and there are undoubtably many of them), the US is at this point quite socially regressive and so has fallen behind the rest of the advanced world in regards to basic civil rights. There are some indications that this is gradually changing -- the recent successes in Gay rights for instance -- but it certainly looks as though its going to be a long and hard roard.

For those Americans on this board, I really do feel sorry for you. If there's any way for you to move, I would advise it; chances are that things are only going to get worse.

[TC]

the first victims of sexism are always the girls because they have even less power tha nwomen. if were gonna be serious about feminism we need to fight all assaults no matter the age of the victim.

Yah thats absolutely true.

Advanced capitalism creates an economic system where, at least among adults without children, gender is no intrinsic advantage in producing capital (as opposed to early economic systems where men had an advantage)...so sexist social conservatives can't effectively oppress adult women as they have too much a stake in the economy, so instead they go after teenage girls as they have minimal economic power and therefore can't defend their interests as effectively in a capitalist system.

In a way, the same is true of gay rights to a lesser extent...openly gays and lesbian adults aren't economically marginal to the extent they'd have to be in order to for homophobes to get legal support for their prejudice. Which doesn't mean that homophobia isn't a big problem because it is, but simply that the balance of power is not sufficently on its side to support the continued legal persecution of gays...even in Texas.

[redstar2000]

When applied to the United States, the phrase "fortress of world reaction" is not rhetorical...it's descriptive.

Persecuting the defenseless is the American Way!