MIAMI, May 2, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Last week, Judge Ronald Alvarez, ordered a temporary stay on the killing of the child of an unnamed 13 year-old ward of the Florida state. He then ruled that the child is too young and immature to make such a life-changing decision.
At the same time he stopped the abortion, the judge also blasted Florida’s Department of Children and Families for not keeping a closer eye on the girl who has run away several times from the group home in which she is supposed to be supervised. It was while she was missing the last time that she became pregnant.
While the fight over the life of the unborn child continues, the Florida legislature is considering a new statute that would require parental notification, but not consent, for girls under the age of 16 wanting to abort. The bill has passed the Senate but is expected to bog down in the House.
Marilyn Munoz, representative for the Department of Children & Families, referring to a Florida statute, said, “In no case shall the department consent to sterilization, abortion, or termination of life support.” The same department attempted to intervene to stop the dehydration death of Terri Schiavo last month. “As a state agency, we have higher standards when it comes to accountability,” Munoz said.
The American Civil Liberties Union argued that intervention by the girl’s legal guardians was not legal because Florida had overturned the requirement for parents to be informed of a minor’s intention to have an abortion. The ACLU’s executive director in Florida, Howard Simon, said that stopping the girl from aborting her unborn child is “illegal, unconstitutional and cruel.”
Read previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Florida Child Services goes to Court to Stop Abortion on 13 Year-Old Ward
With files from Sun Sentinel