Did the Department of Human Services force a pregnant teenager to get an abortion?

  I am not sure it this story is true but if it is it is truly disgusting. The story I am referring to is the claim by the foster mother of a pregnant teenage girl that the Department of Human Services basically forced a teenage girl to have a late term abortion by threatening to take the baby– and a toddler that the girl had already given birth to– away from her if she decided to carry the baby to full term.

  Undermining parental rights, once the DHS learned of the girl’s pregnancy they got a judge to okay the agency to take the girl for the abortion after the girl’s mother refused to okay the abortion. Not only that, but the girl had to be transported across state lines because under Pennsylvania law abortions are illegal at 24 months.

  But the story of the DHS and abortions gets even uglier when you read the following:

Between September 2006 and March 31, Schwarz said, 335 minors under DHS care became pregnant. Of those, 119 resulted in abortions. Of those abortions, 54 were done by judge’s order.

  54 abortions were carried out by court order. One has to assume that is because it was against the will of the parents or legal guardian of the child. This is the type of behavior that you would expect to read about happening in China, not in the United States of America. How many other stories like this are out there but are unknown because nobody has spoken up until now? It is chilling to think of.

   Art Caplan, director of the Center of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania had the following to say about the DHS and the decision to extort this young woman into having an abortion:

You can’t or shouldn’t be threatening to break up a family depending upon whether somebody gets an abortion or not,” Caplan said. “That is . . . unethical practice, it’s not even common sense

  The director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform had this to say about the accusations:

If DHS’s behavior is as described, it is shameful and inexcusable. . . . Sadly, this is not surprising . . . . This kind of bungling, this is not unusual in child-welfare systems. Especially in Philadelphia

  The story goes on to claim that the expectant mother was excited to learn that she was carrying a boy and that she had already talked to her daughter about being a big sister and discussed the name of the soon to be born little brother. She was not planning on having an abortion until she learned that her daughter would be taken away from her if she did not have an abortion. Can you imagine the horror that went through this young girl’s mind?

  Don’t get me wrong, I am not condoning the fact that this sixteen year old girl is getting pregnant and is obviously oblivious to the fact that she is too young to have children. I am not condoning her behavior and apparent promiscuity that led her to become pregnant. I am a firm believer that children should be born to two loving adults in the comfort of a secure and loving relationship, but I thought that having an abortion was supposed to be about the mother’s right to chose. It is obvious that this mother had intended to keep her baby only to change her mind after she was threatened by DHS with the loss of the child that she had already had. What kind of government agency would threaten a young, impressionable, and easily scared young woman into having an abortion with the threat of taking away a child that she obviously loved very much? Is the unborn baby less of a human life just because the mother of that baby is a teenager? Is this how we define life in this country? When did it become acceptable for a government agency to decide who should have babies?

  Her choice was evidentially thrust upon her by coercion and manipulation by the DHS, that is not choice. Again, I hope this story isn’t true, I find it hard to believe– or at least I am unwilling to believe– that this type of thing could happen in the United States. But judging by the radicals that have infiltrated various agencies of the federal government, I fear that this story is true.