I'm putting this one here because I suppose my politics has something to do with it in a round about way. Yesterday I had to deal with a really hard situation. One that really put having certain ideals and my own sense of sympathy very much at war with each other. In retrospect it was a pretty awful decision to have to make and I'm still not quite sure that I am entirely comfortable with the position I had to take. I don't however see that I really had much of a choice but to say "no" really.
I took my folks shopping yesterday at Walmart. While I was in the pharmacy a young lady, a 16 year old she said, walked up to me and she asked me to buy her a Morning After Pill. She had the money in hand, and was clearly distraught. But they apparently wouldn't allow her to buy it because legally she wasn't old enough to buy it without parental consent in this area. (You have to be 17 here and no one will go there unless you are. Even Planned Parenthood will send you home without it if you're under age.) While I was sympathetic I still had to say "no" to her request something that pretty much reduced her to tears.
Politically speaking I'm not much of a conservative and I really do believe that abortion is a very personal choice one each woman needs to make for herself. While I am not pro abortion for myself except in perhaps a life threatening situation I do support the continued legality of such procedures and medications for practical reasons. I don't believe outlawing such things will change the fact that some women will decide they have to go there and I don't see what good restricting women to the use of back alley abortionists will do. It's a statistical fact that in countries where abortion is currently illegal the % of women who die having such procedures is much higher than in countries that allow it as a supervised medical procedure and while some people may think that such women deserve to take their chances and potentially die I definitely don't.
I'm therefore a political liberal when it comes to there being things like easily available birth control. I have and will continue to support a woman's right to control over her body et all. That being said I just could not just buy that pill for that young lady and go on my merry way. Whatever you might think about it the Morning After Pill is a heavy duty medication. One that should be taken properly under the supervision of a trained adult who knows what could happen in various circumstances. I feel at the very least it should be taken with a good friend present to hang out with you for a few hours after the pill is taken to make sure that if something goes wrong and the pill taker can't speak for themselves there will be someone there to make sure the person taking it does get medical treatment and that any medical personnel involved are aware that they may be dealing with someone who has taken it.
A 16 year old kid (and I have doubts she was even that old honestly) taking it in secret I'm not too comfortable with that scenario. Fully grown women face risks taking such medication and there's not too much data out there as to what it could do to a growing girl. Even regular birth control pills carry with them certain risks. In my mind while I understand why many women want the MAP available over the counter I'm not entirely crazy about it being so easily available. Not because it bothers me morally but because there could be complications and I just think that maybe having a medical professional in the background somewhere or at the very least a trained counselor is a pretty good idea.
In the end I counseled her to talk to her mother despite her fears, go visit the folks at Planned Parenthood, or at the very least to find some adult in her own life that could be more available to her like a guidance counselor or something. I could tell my answer didn't thrill her. At that moment all she wanted was help and a way out of whatever situation she was in. As upset as she was I suspect it would have been too late or that maybe the reason she was so desperate was because she might have been forced or date raped perhaps. I don't know. She simply wasn't that forthcoming, there wasn't time to talk more privately, and I didn't feel that an aisle in Walmart was the place to talk about it particularly since her mother who's input on the subject she clearly dreaded wasn't all that far away apparently. Wrong time, wrong place, not my place really either.
Part of me thinks I did the right thing. I'm not her parent but I don't know that as a parent I'd want a perfect stranger interfering in such a situation. Legally I'd be totally culpable besides if something did happen to her, something she definitely wasn't thinking much about. I really hate the idea though that I really couldn't do much more than suggest that she talk to her mother and/or get counseling though. I feel like she really needed help and that I couldn't really provide it bothers me. Today all day I've been very much dwelling on that young lady, on her tears, on my reply, wondering how she is, if she came out of it okay....
Part of me knows I did the right thing, the only thing I could legally and responsibly do in such a situation. Part of me just fears that she might have done or will do something desperate because she didn't get the help she needed. I really don't know what else I could have done. There is no way she'd have even told me her name let alone had me speak to her mother for her. She was fully prepared to bolt if her mother even came near or if I made any request of her to speak to her. Bottom line I'm really worried about her and really wondering what I'd have done if it had been my child approaching someone else that day for such a thing.
I'd like to think that my own child would have been able to come to me about anything but I'm realistic enough to know that even with the most open mother-daughter relationships there's a time in every girl's life where she'll go anywhere, do almost anything to keep from potentially disappointing her own mother. My own mother was about as open as a woman of her generation could be about birth control and sex. She had her shy moments but I always felt that if it came down to it I could go to her and talk about such things, get help that way if needed, that while she might not have been happy if I'd gotten myself in a situation like that she'd ultimately put my well being above anything else. Clearly this young teen felt she didn't have that option. But I also had to wonder if it was because she really didn't or because she was just maybe too afraid of what her mother might say to want to go there.
I remember how magnified my own reaction to some things was back than, how much I feared my parents response to certain things and how overwrought I could get thinking about their reaction versus how upset they really were about such things. My own parents would not been happy had I come to them and told them I was potentially pregnant. For all that my Mom and Dad were open minded about sex and birth control et all their own child being pregnant would have been another matter. My Mom pretty much let me know early on that I'd better be ready mentally and physically before I went there and prepared to protect myself and not get pregnant vs not being responsible, and yes, though she would have not been thrilled to be asked she'd have gotten me BCP's if I had asked. But that was my Mom, she was a realist in her own way about that kind of thing. My Dad? He'd have been decidedly less pleasant about it probably. He'd have probably just grounded me till I was 18 and put me on an even shorter leash, Mom's protests notwithstanding, smile.
I feel for this kid, and my conscience is pretty clear about my decision but I just can't stop thinking about her and her situation and wishing she'd had a better option than to ask some stranger in a Walmart to help her. Apparently because she wasn't of legal age the folks at the local PP weren't all that helpful to her on the phone. The pharmacist turned her right down. About the only option she had in the end was to wait it out or admit she might be a bad situation and talk to her parents which apparently in her mind she felt she couldn't do.
This is one of those no win scenarios that I think I am going to be dwelling over for the rest of my life. One of those "Kobayashi Maru" tests that life just throws at you once in a while. (Star Trek reference, look it up. There's a wiki on it if you're wondering what in the heck I am talking about and you're one of the few people on the planet who hasn't actually seen STII: The Wrath of Kahn.) I hope I did okay. I can't see what else I could have done, but I must admit I'm still dwelling on it a lot today...
What would you have done?...
Last edited by magkelly; 01-30-2012 at 10:04 PM.