Medical Consent When Parents Are Out Of Town: Fill & Download for Free

In no particular order.6 year old in hospital for vaginal and bladder reconstruction following rape, allegedly by a friend of her dad's who was babysitting her while he was out of town. He did not want to press charges and said he'd deal with it himself. (The police were called anyways.)14 year old pregnant schizophrenic who believed she was giving birth to the devil and was therefore suicidal. Father of her baby was her 25 year old husband, who had married her with parental consent at 13 (the day after her bat mitzvah,) it was legal because of a religious exemption. (Child marriage still happens in Canada and the US, far more often than people realize.) The family had taken her off her medications so that she could get pregnant and wouldn't allow her to go back on them, so she spent much of the pregnancy in hospital, terrified and psychotic.An infant coughing herself to death because of a completely vaccine preventable disease (pertussis/whooping cough.) We lost multiple kids because of an outbreak. VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN. And if you're too smart to listen to doctors, don't bring your child to the hospital once they have a deadly disease and beg doctors to save them while putting other children at risk.Two 13 year olds who had childhood cancer and fought it for four years, had bone marrow transplants, which bring you to the brink of death, went into remission and then lived with cancer another three to five years before dying. Those kids barely had a childhood outside of the hospital or memories of a cancer free life, and to go through that much suffering just to lose the battle… it's horrific.And the last one I didn't see (he was in the emergency room and I spoke with the doctor who was assessing him for admission to our ward) a young boy of indeterminate age with multiple fractures and infected injuries, nonverbal, who was rescued from a dog kennel with several large dogs in it. He was absolutely terrified to be approached and needed to be sedated so that ER staff could examine him.Edit to add: This question is making me remember a lot of incidents that I think my mind blocked off. There was also the case of a toddler who was severely beaten by her moms abusive partner when mom tried to leave the relationship. Her head was disfugured so badly that it didn't resemble a person anymore and was two to three times the size it should have been. You couldn't see her eyes. Both ears were damaged to the extent that she would be deaf, and the medical team was unsure if she would be blind as well. Doctors removed bone on both sides of her skull to allow her brain to swell, but she didn't make it. F*CK, that was awful. I was in the midst of trying to leave my own abusive relationship at the time and I remember thinking “this capacity for anger and destruction is why we stay far past the point we want to. Thank God I don't have kids yet.”

Your question indicates that you don't understand the concept of teen pregnancy.So let me help. From 1996 until 2005 I was a public speaker on the subject of teen pregnancy at high schools, colleges, group meetings, group homes, anywhere where adults weren't afraid to hear the truth. I spoke to teachers, counselors, students, principals, superintendents, janitors, coaches, psychologists, parents. I spoke to anyone who would listen.Let me list the reasons why teens get pregnant, and at the end, after reading them, and after reading my explanations, I hope you rethink why you would ask that question at all.First, the top 7 reasons why teens in the US get pregnant ( ages 15-19 ) circa 20001. Poverty2. Sex abuse3. Physical/emotional abuse4. Socioeconomic attraction to adult men5. Lack of competing choices6. Lack of health care as an un-pregnant teen7. Lack of strong adult role models, particularly menAnd in case anyone thinks I am exaggerating about the sex abuse, let me tell you that when I would bring this part up in my talk, the room would get so very quiet, like a giant vacuum sucked out all the sound out of the room. There would be tears, both male and female, not a sound except tears, in a room with 35 kids and teachers. Nobody rustled a paper. No one tapped their pens. Nothing but tears. It is all too real.Teen pregnancy is an adult problem. It's not a teen problem, and it never has been. We as a society push teens into social corners, and when we finally end up blocking them into the dead-end street they know they can't escape from, they choose options that on the surface seem counter productive. But they're not.The average age of a pregnant teen (during the time I spoke) was 15.1 years. The average age of the man who impregnated her was 21.7 years.Let's list the options for the un-pregnant teen who is going to get pregnant. I understand this isn't the status for every teen girl in America who gets pregnant. But it is for the country as a whole.Lack of affordable health care67% are being sexually/physically/emotionally abused70% live in povertyPriced out of collegeDeteriorating, crumbling schoolDeteriorating, crumbling neighborhoodsLack of decent jobsSingle parent homes, with the dad missing mostlyDrugs more readily available than birth controlLack of control over their livesOur hypocritical attitude about sexThere is plenty more but let's stop there. Now, let's see what being pregnant gets you.Free medical care in almost every stateThe sex abuse stopsThe physical/emotional abuse almost always stopsFree nutritional help in almost every stateSpecial classes at school so you don't drop outSupport groupsA feeling of control over your lifeAgain, there's more. But you hopefully will see the picture here.We can tell the health of a town or city just be looking at the teen birth rate (TBR). It is THE barometer of health. We can tell how healthy the schools are, the doctors, the hospitals, the jobs, the recreation areas, the physical health, the number of college grads, the dropout rate of the local high school. We can tell the median income, the number of people who know CPR, the crime, the violence, the drug use, the abortion rate. The TBR is where we look first.We can tell whether a city has a high or low TBR just by the median income alone. I would bring in the zip codes from towns near where I spoke, and list them according to the TBR, from lowest to highest. Next to it I would put the median income. Always, ALWAYS, the higher the median income, the lower the TBR.And of course, the higher the median income, the lower the abortion rates. More money means more choices, period. Less money means fewer choices, and the choices you did have were riskier, heavier in consequence, with long term ramifications that weren't always healthy.A pregnant teen has been called the "discouraged amongst the disadvantaged". They are part of America that has fewer choices, and fewer options. So they pick one that offers just a sliver of happiness, and we as a society ask questions like the one asked here. Why should you help? Because every adult has created it and every adult needs to help with it.She has an attraction to adult men because the average adult man that impregnates a teen has a job, a car, lives outside of his parents’ home. He has some small amount of money and a small amount of status. He is a ticket out for her. He represents hope, and he has something called sperm that offers hope. He shows an interest in her, however narrow and however small. He is a non college grad. He is quick to disrespect, using issues of power and dominance to find his way. He will also go on to father other children and not stick around.The man that impregnated her leaves, wanting nothing to do with raising a child. She will go to have at least one more child with a different man. She is two to three times as likely to drop out of high school. Only 2% of pregnant teens graduate from college. She will go on to work a variety of mostly low-wage jobs, have health issues as she ages, and die younger than her non-pregnant peers.But a bigger problem is she loses power. She won't be the bank president; she will instead be desperately asking the bank for a loan. She won't be a police officer; she will instead be calling them for aspects of her personal life, her relationships, drugs and so on.She is less likely to own a house, or have a stable marriage. She is less likely to run for office, or set policy, or make decisions that matter in a public sphere.This, of course, isn't perfect. Teens impregnate teens. They do. Some teens marry their adult man. Some go on to college. But lest anyone here who reads this thinks this is some "horny kids", or "irresponsible sex", or "not any morals", "keep your legs together" or some other issue related to values, morals, sex and so on, I will be the first to say it. Teen pregnancy has nothing to do with sex, except it's the tool used, anymore than guns are responsible for war. It simply isn't so. It's just the tool used.There are still the economic issues, the crumbling neighborhoods, the poverty. But our girl sees it differently. She knows she is trapped and wants out. She wants something better, she wants out of the dead end we forced her into, and this is how she does it—by getting pregnant. Getting pregnant gets her more, and even if it's just a few small things, and even if it's just for awhile, so be it. She has unconditioned love, she has control, she has power, she is creating love out of a world in which there is damn little of it. So if you want to blame someone, then leave your daughter alone. Instead, then, go ask society to collectively look in the mirror.There is also another reaction to teens being forced into social corners, and being blocked onto and into dead-end streets, what with all the abuse, violence, and poverty. It's called the military, and our sad and laughable pretense that we have an all-volunteer armed services. We don't. We just have more socially acceptable escape routes.Edit and Update #1- So many people have upvoted this answer and so many people seem genuinely moved by what I wrote. So let me first say thank you and I consider it a privilege to be able to contribute an opinion on such an important subject.The way I presented this material to students was like this: first, I would go over definitions and statistics on the TBR around the world. from lowest (Norway, Sweden, parts of Europe) to highest (think Africa). The lowest TBR was always in the countries where literacy was high, median income high, low wage inequality, free public health services, and war-mongering was low to nonexistent.I would then introduce a fictitious couple, Jim and Mary. I would use them as a backdrop, a guide to just how and why teen pregnancy works. We started with Mary entering middle school, then high school, her meeting Jim, her relationship with him, her pregnancy, the birth, her aftercare, her second child, her work life, her other relationships, her aging, her death. We also follow Jim, discussing his lifestyle, his attraction to Mary, where he goes and what he will do.With this couple, I could explain all the issues: poverty, health care, income, choices, family, school and everything thrown into this mix. And of course, sex abuse. It's a very real part of teen pregnancy, and to illustrate how real it is, in this first Edit I want to share this story.So I'm speaking at a high school, and this is the last class of the day. The room is packed, kids are restless, and I know I need to capture their attention from the get-go, or they will drift off mentally and emotionally.The teacher and I are chatting just before I start, and in walks this boy. The teacher looks at him and says, “Why are you here? This isn't your class.” The boy says, "I know. I had my last class cancelled, so I thought I would hang out here."The teacher looks pretty hard at him and says, "Ok. But no bothering anyone while our speaker is talking." The boy sits down and the teacher explains to me that he's sort of a trouble student, noisy, talking with friends, not really paying attention most of the time. "If he starts acting up, stop and I'll boot him out."Stuff like that doesn't really bother me, so I say Ok, the bell rings and I jump into it. I watch him, yes, he's pretty much just like that, he's not really listening to me, but I ignore him and go to it.Now, there's a part of the talk where Mary meets Jim for the first time. She's about 14, he's about 20. I ask the class things like how long before they start having sex (3 months), how long before she gets pregnant (9 months), is Jim happy (yes), is Mary happy (yes), are the families happy (not at first), and so on.Now, right here is where I ask the class " Is Mary sexually active when she meets Jim?" (yes, but). I look over and see the boy talking with his friends, so I decide I want this boy to pay more attention, so I walk right up to his desk, stop, wait a couple seconds, and he looks up at me. I say, "Is Mary sexually active when she meets Jim?" No warm up, no preliminaries, I just say, "Is Mary sexually active when she meets Jim"?.He looks me in the eye and without skipping a beat says, "Yes, but." I wait. He looks around the room a second, and very calmly says, "But not of her own free will."I was stunned. Totally stunned that he would know this. We lock eyes for a few seconds, he takes my silence as a signal to go ahead, takes a breath and says, "She's being sexually abused."Instant silence in the class.Like hearing a pin drop silence. No one talks, no one moves, no one even breathes. Total, instant silence. You can feel the tension in the room go from 0 to 100 in the space of that one statement. It is like everyone's heart stopped beating.He continues to look me in the eye, we both stare at each other for about 5 seconds. He was completely calm, completely sure in his answer, and he was completely correct. I say, "You're right," and walk back to the front of the class and continue on with the talk, entering into the discussion the whole concept of how sex abuse works in teen pregnancy.Statistic vary, but the general agreement is about 65-70% of teen moms, ages 15-19 have been sexually abused. I have stats as low as 35%, and as high as 80%. If you include girls ages 13-19, the stats go up higher. But in order to gain some perspective on this, we all need to understand what constitutes sex abuse. It is NOT just intercourse. That's a very small part of the overall picture.Sex abuse is any sexual contact that is not consented to. Any. Sexual. Contact. Any at all. So it could be looking in such a way continuously that might make a girl feel uncomfortable, and having it go on, even after the girl asks to please stop. Unwanted groping, touching, rubbing, grabbing, stroking anywhere. Sexual talk. Sexual joking. Sexual situations un-consented to. Leering. Ogling. Sexual talk that is under the guise of "education' but is unwanted and un-consented to. Forcing sexual conversation. Peeking, poking, prying. Sexually irritating. Sexually probing.It can be verbal, physical, emotional, spiritual. It can be manipulative, it can be selfish, greedy, angry, bitter, confused, harmful, destructive.Consider now the Age Of Consent. Every state and most countries have an age of consent. Anyone under that age is considered a minor and you CANNOT consent, even if you think you did. Say yes? Irrelevant. It's legally abuse. Wanted more? Initiated it? Didn't fight back? Put yourself in situations where it could happen again? Liked it? Thought about it? Masturbated to it? Pursued it? Were drunk, high, wired? Didn't say no? Encouraged it? IRRELEVANT. If you were a minor, it's abuse regardless.So let's take our girl Mary. Mary is a minor. She is being abused by someone, almost always someone she knows, and even though it falls short of intercourse, it's making her feel uncomfortable, unhappy, unprotected, vulnerable, worthless, demeaned, disrespected, anxious, scared, sad, and worst of all—she's looking for someone to save her. She doesn't know yet that you save yourself or you remain un-saved.She is looking for a savior, and lo and behold, one day Jim walks into her life and all of a sudden, he looks a lot better than he might were she not being abused. He represents Hope, and she knows that Jim + her + baby = something much, much better than she has now. Jim alone isn't going to save her, and she knows it. Jim is a male and almost always teen moms have had bad male role models. It's Jim + Mary + baby that is going to save her. That's how she sees it, and you are not going to change her mind.Sexual abuse, especially at young ages, rewires your sexual thinking. It rewires how you see and view and perceive sex. For some of us, it never goes away. You are changed, and the manifestations of that change can be anything from getting pregnant young to self destructive behavior, to mental illness issues, to, well—let's just say you come out of it most of the time very different. Some people roll with it, and life continues. But mostly, people are changed, and usually that change is harmful, destructive and continues to eat away at you for years to come.

When I was about 20, I was working alone overnight at a gas station and started throwing up like crazy. Couldn't get a hold of the managers (it was a chain, there were several) ended up calling a regional manager and told him he had about 30 mins to get there or I was locking the doors and throwing the keys on the roof. It was 24 hours, so there was only one set of keys.He got there and I just left, I was feeling like death. It was a great job, great pay, and great benefits. As I was walking out he noted I'd need a Dr's note to return to work. I almost went straight to the ER then, so I wouldn't lose my job. But my house was on the way and by the time I got there I simply couldn't drive one more mile. I crawled into my apt, crawled into bed and didn't move again for days. My GF was taking care of me, but all I was doing was drinking NyQuill every time I woke up and passing back out. I had a 103 degree fever for days. Finally my GF talked to my mom, and my mom told her to take me to the ER.They checked me out, gave me IV fluids because I was dehydrated, said I had mono, gave me a RX and sent me home. Next day I was worse, 104 fever, still couldn't eat or drink. So I was on a fourth or fifth day of not being able to hold anything down and with a super high fever. My mom had enough, she came over herself and took me to the hospital. She read those doctors the riot act about them sending me home the day before and insisted they admit me.They did. Then 6 hours later they moved me into an isolation room. People had to wear masks to see me. I was in a wing all by myself. Thought it was a little weird, but I was so out of it didn't really care.They thought I had legionnaires. It only had a 50/50 survival rate the first time you get it, and the test took several days to get results. So they treated me for that. I kept getting worse. Results came back negative. All of a sudden I'm seeing 6 different doctors a day. They are taking blood samples like every hour, and flying them all over the place. Doctors are flying in to take a look at me from all over.They have no idea what's wrong with me. They are starting to think I have some exotic something from working in the gas station. The CDC is getting involved.My organs are shutting down, they don't know why. I'm turning yellow. They tell my family to say their goodbyes. (Only found this out later, no one told me anything at the time. Not that I was awake much.)Since the legionnaires test came back negative they had been trying different types of antibiotics every 6 hours, just to see if anything worked. It wasn't.Finally, they met with my family and asked permission to try an experimental antibiotic that was still in testing. At some point I guess I had either signed my consent over to my parents (don't remember) or they took it away since I was so out of it. But either way, my parents agreed and they tried it out.It was like fire in my veins! I swear it was molten lava! I could taste it in my mouth, and it made me dry heave non-stop (I hadn't eaten anything solid in almost 2 weeks by this time) but within hours I was doing better. In a few days I was fine. I was released a little later.They told me if that hadn't of worked, I was a day or so from dying.They never did figure out what I had. Still don't know. I was told if they ever did figure it out, they'd name it after me.The medical bills almost killed me tho! In the end they comped all the lab test, like 100k, wrote it off to research. All the specialist did the same. In the end all I ended up owing was for the room and meds. Was like 30k. Insurance covered all but like 3k. I lucked out. All around.So that's how I almost died.That experimental antibiotic never got approved. The effects were too severe I was told, it was too aggressive. But lucky me, it saved my life. Right place, right time.H. Kaplan has reminded me that this wasn't my first time almost dying. And that has reminded me of another time too.I don't remember this well, I was 5 or 6. I got really really sick and my parents got really worried so they rushed me to the ER. I don't remember this at all, but once there they started questioning me, and found out I had been eating onions out of my neighbors garden with his daughter. My best friend back then. I remember eating the onions, green onions straight out of the ground.They called that neighbour, and found he had sprayed his garden with pesticide that morning. They had him go read them what it was, and were able to treat me. I turned out fine.But my parents told me that if they hadn't of been able to find out exactly what was making me sick, they might have not been able to treat me.All I remember is the onions…. They make me sick to this day, if raw.This one was in the papers, if not my part of it.So I was about 7, and me and my mom are in town running errands. My mom says “We need to get the car washed, and get you a hair cut. Which do you want to do first?”For the first time, and last time, in all my childhood, I chose to do the thing I hated first. And save the thing I loved for last.I hated HATED haircuts. I was a hyper child and they always cut my ears. Always!!! But I loved the carwash! It was one of those that they took your car, ran it down a track, and you could watch from the windows inside. They had these steps under the windows so kids could watch. It was so much fun.The hair place was one business over from the car wash, and for whatever reason that one day I chose to do that first.We get there, and my mom is going to go first. She hands me a quarter or two to go get a pop from the soda machine in the back. It's one of those old time soda coolers where the glass bottles are hanging from rails in a chest like cooler.Just like this:Google imageAnyway, it's in this hallway that's got no windows and covered in mirrors. Little one foot by one foot mirrors. I put my money in, and I'm sliding the bottle out when all of a sudden it seems to me the earth titled 90 degrees. All the mirrors come crashing down shattering on the floor and I'm thrown to the ground. I run back out to the main room, soda forgotten, screamimg “I didn't do it! I didn't do it!”My mom's in the chair, crying. Everyone's crying. All the floor to ceiling windows are gone. Glass is everywhere. She just holds me crying. A few minutes later some police men show up and herd everyone out of there and down behind this retaining wall. They stay with us and keep everyone down.After awhile they allow us to leave. To get back home we have to drive back by the carwash. It's gone. And I mean gone. Nothing is left standing. Nothing, it's leveled.If I had chosen the carwash first, there is no doubt we would have been in there. I would have been standing at one of the windows watching.Propane Gas Blast at a Carwash Kills Employee; 15 Others Hurt