And Why Do People Live in Florida? You Couldn't PAY Me to Visit There for 5 Minutes

Update: One of our great regulars provided this link to a Sun Sentinel article talking about the girl's appearance in court. And the regular was right: this girl's got more "upstairs" than most of the "authorities" in the case.

Forgive me, I can't find the references now, but on several blogs yesterday, including Shakespeare's Sister, I saw another one of those just lovely Florida children's welfare department cases.

This one involves a 13-year-old girl, in the custody of the department, who became pregnant. Nice. So the department originally requested she be able to have an abortion because well... let's count the obvious reasons, shall we, starting with age 13.

Ah, but Jeb can't allow any death to happen on his watch that he thinks will affect his political future (which I hope is null but trust me, he'll run for prez; the Bushies think it's their due). So now the state has stepped into the case to try to block the abortion because it's not in the best interests of the 13-year-old.

Really? It's in her best interests to bear a child when her body hasn't even finished developing? She's emotionally, financially, and supportively equipped to deal with a pregnancy that should NOT have happened if the department was actually trying to protect and serve her?

Of course this has nothing to do with the girl's best interests and everything to do with Jeb's. The state could not do its job in protecting this girl and now, to keep Jeb from embarrassment, we turn one victim into two by forcing her to carry the child to term.

As I've said (too) many times before, I would prefer if there was never again one single occurrence of an unplanned pregnancy that needs to be resolved through abortion. But we're not there yet. Nor are we going to get there with all the bullshit about Abstinence Only and trying to keep contraceptives out of the hands of women (and men).

For God's sake, don't force this child - and that's what she is, a child - to carry a child to term just because it's "good for Jeb". Enough grand standing.