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The Elisa Bauer case, Choice devours itself [Updated]

Elisa Bauer, a mentally handicapped woman in Nevada, is approximately thirteen weeks pregnant. While Amy and William Bauer, her adoptive parents, are her legal guardians, she lives in a group home which does not keep very good tabs on her. It is evidently well-known that she wanders off to nearby truck-stops and casinos where sexual encounters with her occur. Elisa has the mental capacity of a 6-year-old.

When Judge Egan Walker learned from doctors that she was pregnant, he immediately began "investigations" into whether she has the mental capacity to "consent to pregnancy and childbirth." Let's stop right there. What? In other words, even though she is now pregnant, pregnancy and childbirth are deemed by the liberal mind of this judge to be things she has to be separately capable of "consenting" to. Since an abortion is the obvious alternative the judge has in mind, we have the bizarre situation of a judge who may conclude that a pregnant disabled woman is not mentally competent to "consent" to pregnancy and childbirth but is mentally competent to "consent" to an invasive medical procedure! Or perhaps that her capacity to consent to the medical procedure is irrelevant. This is legally completely upside-down. It is well-known that Elisa is not mentally competent to consent to anything related to her medical well-being, which is why she has legal guardians. She has the mental capacity of a 6-year-old! Her legal guardians are her parents, and they do not consent to her having an abortion. Moreover, the court has not had their guardianship removed. It is highly questionable whether the court has any standing in this matter at all.

The Bauers' attorney has petitioned the Nevada Supreme Court to intervene, and that court has agreed and has requested the local court to respond to the claim that it is meddling where it presently has no standing.

To make matters even weirder, Judge Walker also plans to hold hearings on whether Elisa would choose to have her baby or to abort her baby if she did have more mental capacity. At this point, we are moving into the realm of utter fiction and projection. This is not a case of a person who was formerly mentally competent and left behind, say, verbal or written instructions. Elisa has never been mentally competent to make such decisions. Trying to decide what she would do if she had a different mental capacity from the capacity she has had throughout her entire life is an exercise in epistemic chaos. Or, to put it more bluntly, it's a stupid pretense. The judge has no right to be engaging in it, any more than he would for anything else--other medical decisions, a vote for President, or anything else. This is why Elisa has guardians.

Elisa's parents have indicated that she wishes to carry her pregnancy to term. Her abortion-minded caregiver and doctor (in the home that has let her wander about and have sex at truck-stops) claim that (obviously under their influence) she has said that she wants to "have the baby taken out." In either event, anyone knows that a six-year-old child can be influenced to say a great many things, which is why six-year-olds are not given standing to decide on their own medical care. More about that later.

Meanwhile, one of her major caregivers, Allen Whitenack, has charmingly dismissed the six sets of adoptive parents offering to take Elisa's baby at birth by saying that allowing the baby to be born and adopted would be making her "a surrogate for white people." If we can infer from this that Elisa is black, evidently Whitenack would rather have a black child killed than have him given in adoption to a white family. It rather reminds one of PETA killing animals rather than letting them live as pets.

Judge Walker, undeterred by the Nevada Supreme Court's tacit rebuke, has now asserted that he does have the authority to order an abortion for Elisa. (Some reports have also said a sterilization.) It is unclear whether he intends simply to carry on with his "hearings" on the assumption of his own power to decide the fate of Elisa's child (note here that the Bauers still are Elisa's legal guardians), in essence daring the Nevada Supreme Court to stop him, or if he intends to wait for word from the Supreme Court as to whether he is to be allowed to proceed. Given his arrogance thus far, I suspect the former.

The Bauers report that Walker spontaneously called them in concerning Elisa's pregnancy after hearing about it from social services and, when they told him that they did not plan to take her for an abortion because of their religious beliefs, told them that their religion had no place in his courtroom! That's what is known as chutzpah. He initiates court proceedings sua sponte and then tells the guardians, who are making a private medical decision on the basis of their own total beliefs, including their religious beliefs, that their religious beliefs have no place in his courtroom! But his religion-chaste ears wouldn't have to be offended by hearing religious beliefs in the courtroom if he hadn't dragged them into the courtroom to account for their private medical decisions for their daughter! By this reckoning, no Christian parents have a right to take their Christian beliefs into account in any medical decision for their children, because under some hypothetical circumstances some judge might call them to account for that decision, at which point their religious beliefs would have "no place in the courtroom"!

From what I have seen as a court-watching layman with an interest in such family law issues, such proceedings for a court to order some medical treatment would never normally be undertaken without a move to terminate guardianship or question parental fitness, unless there were a threat to the child's or incompetent person's life--as, for example, if the parents were refusing some lifesaving or allegedly lifesaving treatment for the child.

One irony here is that Walker has also refused to allow Elisa to return to live with the Bauers, thus leaving her in the very home that has so neglected to supervise her as to allow the pregnancy in the first instance. If anyone's fitness should be called into question, it's that of the caregivers in this home, but that's obviously not how Walker thinks.

It is instructive to notice how leftists (and I do not hesitate to call Walker and Whitenack leftists here) think about this sort of thing. When it comes to things like death, even children and those with the mental capacity of children must be given the "opportunity" to have this option. Indeed, Walker's question as to whether Elisa can consent to the pregnancy implies that abortion is the default position! Whitenack says that he's fighting for the right of the developmentally disabled to "have a choice in their life." Walker, more suave, admits that Elisa may not actually have the present capacity to choose an abortion but gets around this by the elaborate and ridiculous legal fiction of holding hearings to decide what she would choose if she were a person with entirely different capacities! Either way, the concept is very clear: If you lack the mental capacity to choose the thing we think is a Good, we will invent some claim or myth according to which this Good is really your choice. In that way we can carry out our own wishes upon you without your giving any meaningful consent while claiming that we are upholding your choice and your freedom!

The implications of such an approach are fairly drastic. For example, assisted suicide ("suicide") could be carried out upon children or the lifelong mentally disabled by claiming that this is what they would have chosen if they had had the relevant capacities! Or the little ones could be induced to say whatever their manipulators want them to say, like, "I want to go to heaven," whereupon the death masters could come in claiming to uphold their right to "have a choice." And one doesn't even want to think about the implications such thinking could have regarding child prostitution or other sexual issues.

If this were a matter of, say, the wisest long-term treatment for epilepsy, from which Elisa also suffers, nobody would be playing these kinds of games. The whole thing would be carried out in a more orderly fashion, and the decisions of the guardians would be prima facie controlling. But because it is abortion, the left believes that there must be a special opportunity presented, even by rogue court proceedings, for Elisa's child to die.

We must pray for Elisa, her baby, and the Bauers. At this point the Nevada Supreme Court seems the best hope for stopping Judge Walker.

Update: Bad news. According to this story, the Nevada Supreme Court has affirmed Walker's authority to carry on.

Comments (42)

For example, assisted suicide ("suicide") could be carried out upon children or the lifelong mentally disabled by claiming that this is what they would have chosen if they had had the relevant capacities!

Basically what happened to Terry Schiavo.

Pure insanity. How did this even get to the court's attention? Someone must have filed something with the court.

I'm assuming that this judge is an atheist who views the Bauer's Christianity as too dangerous to allow Elisa to live with them.

Basically what happened to Terry Schiavo.

Terri was indeed murdered by a lawless judge, and I have a lengthy analysis of the case here.

http://christendomreview.com/Volume001Issue002/lydia_mcgrew_01.html

I should say, however, that in that case the court was obligated to find witnesses who claimed that, while mentally competent, Terri had indicated a wish to die under relevantly similar circumstances. The evidence was very poor, and the judge ignored strong counterevidence and then claimed that he had drawn his conclusion upon "clear and convincing evidence," but the evidentiary hearings at least had to be based upon actual alleged information about the person's wishes and beliefs on the subject while mentally competent. This case opens up the vista of using entirely made-up hypothetical positions of a person who has never been competent and hence cannot ever have had any conscious, minimally informed, mentally competent opinion on the subject whatsoever.

On the question of how the judge got involved, my understanding is that it was an informal procedure. I am willing to be corrected, but the stories I have read seem to indicate that he was simply _told_ either by Elisa's doctor or by someone in social services that she was pregnant and then began to carry out these "investigations" sua sponte--off his own bat, as it were. This is highly irregular, which seems to be part of the basis of the Bauers' attorney's argument that he must be stopped.

What can you say? There is no bottom of the hill. All we can hope is that the Nevada Supreme Court knocks this down.

Without any other details - forcing someone to have an abortion that cannot consent legally seems horribly wrong. The girl was raped, legally, but to do something else that she can't legally consent to...

At the very least, she can learn that "this is what happens when you do that."

(if there was no abortion)

At the very least, she can learn that "this is what happens when you do that."

No, probably she can't. I doubt that she has the mental capacity for such learning to take place. It doesn't matter. The child is innocent. Her legal guardians know that. The judge is out of line both legally and morally, and, horribly enough, the Nevada Supreme Court is apparently going to let him charge ahead.

Note that in the case of things like "refusing treatment" there have usually been either state or federal Supreme Court rulings treated as laws or else actual statutory laws that create an excuse for a judge to engage in shenanigans like holding hearings about what the person would want and the like. As far as I know there is _no_ such legal fig leaf regarding abortion for such proceedings. It's all just being done because the courts think they should be allowed to do it, and because Abortion is Different. As I said, I doubt very much that any such rogue proceedings would be taking place if the parents, say, switched epilepsy doctors for Elisa to a doctor who recommended a different treatment. This sort of spontaneous micromanaging and push toward abortion is taking place because abortion is one of the Sacraments of the Left.

"[The judiciary] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment."

Oh well, so much for that.


In all fairness to the judge and Mr. Hamilton, The Federalist isn't talking about state judiciaries, which in some cases more closely resemble their pre-separation-of-powers English forebears. But I would be more than a little shocked if Nevada law actually authorizes a trial court to invent proceedings like this out of thin air. Does anyone have the Supreme Court docket number?

I'm amazed that this whole case even exists. It's utter lunacy. The fact that we're talking about such a horrible thing just goes to show, well, What's Wrong With the World.

A docket number isn't coming up on a quick googling, Titus. I'm really surprised that Nevada Supremes are allowing him to go forward with it now. The story I linked above in the update says that the Nevada Supremes instanced the fact that the Bauers didn't file a yearly report on their guardianship as required by law (this past year, I guess?), but...1) That wasn't even mentioned before, 2) All the reports thus far have stated that their fitness as guardians has not been called in question by Walker, and 3) It's extremely difficult to see how that mere fact, if we take it to be true, authorizes Walker to start proceedings into, specifically, the possibility of an abortion for Elisa. In fact, it's a little odd to me that the Nevada Supremes brought it up. Aren't they themselves only supposed to rule on facts presented to them by the parties to a case? It almost sounds like they are trying to prompt Walker with tips as to how he should go about getting custody away from the Bauers so as to carry out the abortion. Sorry if that sounds cynical, but it's how it strikes me.

This is a frightful situation.

I've been praying for the Baures on an off since I first saw this post go up.

Here's a head-scratcher from the AP article Lydia linked in the update:

"The woman was living in a Reno group home when she wandered away from it and became pregnant 13 weeks ago. The child's father has not been identified, and it's unknown whether the pregnancy resulted from rape or consensual sex, according to court documents."

How is there any doubt about whether sex is consensual when someone is incapable of consent (in any meaningful sense)?

This is a very distressing story. If Elisa has only a mental age of six, those who took advantage of her are no better than paedophiles, and the ones who were so careless and reckless to allow her to be so taken advantage of are almost as guilty. The sinister actions of the lawyers seems very ominous.

How is there any doubt about whether sex is consensual when someone is incapable of consent (in any meaningful sense)?

An important question.

My own extremely pessimistic prediction is that as time goes on (and perhaps not a huge amount of time) we will see increasing support for pedophilia and that speculations about consensual sex with minors, even very young minors, will play a role. Obviously, Elisa is physically 32 years old, but the language itself, given that all the stories admit her very young mental capacity, is ominous. The pro-pedophilia agenda among our intellectual elites has been simmering on a back burner for a while. It may have gotten moved to the back burner (it seemed to be cooking along merrily a couple of decades ago) temporarily because of the priest scandals and the more pressing desire of the elites to rampage against the Catholic Church. But I expect it to come back. This case will probably have its small role more through the pretense that Elisa can meaningfully consent to an abortion than through the pretense that she could meaningfully consent to sex. Either way, it is a depressing thought that the mentally disabled, because of the disconnect between their physical and mental ages, may be used in this fashion to further an agenda of faux "consent."

Lydia, I hope your fears don't come to pass, but they echo what Dr. Judith Reisman has warned. Where will it all end?

How is there any doubt about whether sex is consensual when someone is incapable of consent (in any meaningful sense)?

Well, that would be the difference between a "legitimate rape" and something else, wouldn't it?

So what's next? Wait for troopers to show up at the door and drag the women to the abortuary, or should the family pull a Lisa Miller and flee?

Lydia,

Out of curiosity, would you call General Pickett a pedophile? He was 28 when he married my cousin who was 14 at the time.

Mike T, I was thinking about that very idea last night. There is a fundamental distinction between women (and men) who have reached the age (both physically and emotionally) of sexual capability, and those who have not. A normal girl who is 9 is incapable of truly giving consent to sex or to marriage, because she is physiologically incapable of the biological processes of normal sexual function, and she is also emotionally incapable of desiring to give herself physically and receive from a man the same gift. To marry is to make a gift, in the here and now, presently, of yourself sexually as well as in other ways. A normal 9 year old girl doesn't "own" her sexuality as a present, ready-to-use capacity of which she can make a gift here and now.

It is otherwise for a typical 14-year old, or at least for a typical 15-year old. She has gone through the physical changes for which sexual activity can result in its normative function in an adult: she can want a man, want to give herself, want the completion of the act, and to produce its natural fruit in a new person. Marriage in a teen is not the inherent violation of nature that sex imposed on a child is. Ancient (up to the relatively recent 1800's in western countries, even the 1900s in the rest of the world) practices of marrying girls at ages 14, 15, and 16 were common and without universal complaint precisely because they are within the natural boundaries.

Due to the complexity of modern society, girls in our modern culture are not psychologically ready to marry at 15. Nor are boys ready at age 16. But they are physically ready, and emotionally capable of it. That disjoint, that separation of the right timing, that failure of happy coordination of development of different aspects in man, is really one of the root causes of the sexual revolution. (Which, from one perspective, is not so much a revolution as a simple repudiation of the 1st of 3 possible answers to that separation of coordinate timing: either youths learn to delay their sexual activity until they are psychologically and socially ready for marriage, or youths get into sexual activity without the benefit of marriage, or youths get married before they are psychologically and socially prepared for that state.)

Tony, that's an interesting comment on an discomfiting problem. I'll be keeping my opinion to myself because it's not well thought-through (I should do more of that). Anyway, the problem you're pointing out is a real one, but made all the more difficult to face by the fact that we can't trust the ruling anti-culture of our time to deal with it in a morally serious way.

Tony,

I would contend that the movement to label men like Doug Hutchison as pedophiles is part and parcel of the pro-pedophile movement. They would have us believe that a 51 year old who is sexually attracted to a 16 year old who is significantly sexier than most American women is psychologically in the same camp as men who go after young kids. I think a society that has been conditioned to believe that is already dangerously out of touch with reality in a way that weakens its ability to fight off true perversion.

I think Sage's approach is the wisest here. Tony has also made some interesting comments, though I do not actually agree that physical maturity and readiness for sexual activity and motherhood descend quite so quickly upon 14-year-old girls. Puberty is more of a process than that, and the record of dangerous and complicated childbirths among teen girls in Muslim and African countries shows that even physical maturity is not so simple a matter. Mike T., I've known your position on these issues for quite a while. Just as I would not run a thread defining pornography, so I will not run a thread in which we all go, "Oh, gee, how difficult it is to define pedophilia. Let's have a long discussion on how to define it."

My deploring of pedophilia above and my indication of the leftist move I anticipate to normalize it and to radically redefine consent are things I stand by. What I don't stand by is a discussion of where, exactly, the age of consent should fall. Let's please remember that our enemies want to abolish the notion of an age of consent altogether. We shouldn't assist them in any way, shape, or form.

Scott W., I wish the family could flee, but the custody matter is complicated. Elisa doesn't live with them, and hasn't for some time. And Judge Walker isn't about to change that now. So they don't have access to her. Instead, she's in this group home under the influence of Allen Whitenack and one Dr. Torch, both of whom are apparently trying to get her to say that she wants the abortion so that it can be spun as her choice. It looks like the one person who has the most active role for the good guys in this is going to be the Bauers' attorney, bless him.

Lydia,

Pedophilia is actually quite easy to define. It's the primary or exclusive attraction to pre-pubescent minors. Thus General Pickett was no pedophile when he married my cousin.

My frustration with you on this topic is that you think you are taking the moral high ground by implying that said situation has pedophilic overtones to it. I would contend that you are in fact ceding ground to the very groups you oppose by conflating what are typically just immoral acts (fornication) and prudential considerations (letting your 16-17 year old daughter exclusively date a guy in his 20s) with serious depravity.

When you do that, you are increasing the pool of people who can be called pedophiles. Thus you take them from a statistically insignificant deviant group to one with disturbingly high representation in society. This has the same effect of how gays have tried to use every dirty statistical trick to make themselves look like a "mainstream 10%" of society instead of a "weird 2-3%."

My biggest fear is that when we do this, people will eventually say "oh it's just a sickness or quirk" and it'll go down the same route as homosexuality cuz as we all know, a few percentage points of our population cannot be just fundamentally f'ed up amiright?

Mike, I said I wasn't going to have a "Gee, it's so hard to define exactly where the age of consent should fall" conversation, and I meant it. No, I don't think 14-year-olds should be getting married and having babies.

It's amazing how you keep dancing around the edge of actually answering my original question. But whatever, I'm done here.

It's perfectly possible to object to 14-year olds marrying, and to object to 14-year olds marrying someone 3 times their age, on 2 morally distinct grounds from the objection to having 6 or 9-year olds marrying at all.

It is, likewise, possible to point to a person who aged 51 who 'desires marriage' with a person aged 14 and suggest that they have a defect in their sexual sensibilities without claiming that defect being the same defect as pedophilia; or alternatively to say that they have a defect in their sexual sensibilities that is on the same spectrum as that of pedophilia, but that it does not have the severity that goes under the name 'pedophilia'. There are lots and lots of ways of having an inclination for excess in the area of sex, such as: too often, to too many people, in inappropriate situations, etc, and so on (without trying to plumb the depths of that depraved barrel). All sexual sins of excess have something in common, and yet there are many different notions and types of excess, as well, and it is not necessary to be absolutely clear on whether X brand is "truly" different from Y brand in all ways or the same in all ways to be sure that X is bad and that Y is also bad.

Yeah, Mike, I'm _deliberately_ refusing to discuss that question. That's not "dancing around." That's saying, "Bag it. I'm not having that discussion." If I refuse to discuss your question, I don't dance around it. I tell you it's not a question I intend to discuss. If that upsets you to the extent of your leaving, fine 'n' dandy, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Tony,

Precisely. Men like Doug Hutchinson ought to be ostracized for marrying such a young woman (especially relative to his age), but it adds nothing to accuse them of being child molesters. They aren't child molesters. They're dirty old men. The reason to ostracize them is that they are making a decision with these young women that are strongly against the interests of the young women. A 50 year old who marries a 16 year old is going to be 70 when their oldest hits college; probably dead by the time their youngest does if they have several kids.

Lydia,

If that upsets you to the extent of your leaving, fine 'n' dandy, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I'm done arguing with you on this, men's issues, etc. You've demonstrated that you are patently unreasonable on most of them. Even Zippy mentioned on his blog when you and Dalrock were going at it that you seem to lose your normal sensibilities on these topics.

This case will probably have its small role more through the pretense that Elisa can meaningfully consent to an abortion than through the pretense that she could meaningfully consent to sex.

If Elisa Bauer can be compelled to have an abortion, she can be compelled to do anything. In this particular case, not only does she appear to personally oppose it within her capacity to understand what it means, but abortion is something that normal women do not ever desire except in what they may regard as extraordinary circumstances.

To me, this is the brave new world territory you ought to be focusing on. If this were to go through the state system and enter into the federal courts (then upheld by the SCOTUS) it would make the Obamacare case look quaint. It would affirm the position that the state can literally force you to do something which you both personally oppose and that is unnatural simply by finding you mentally incompetent.

You know, as puberty sets in earlier all of the factors that give the judge a basis to go after Bauer and her baby could apply to little girls who have early onset puberty and who get raped. After all, the judge's arguments would work just as well on a 9 year old who gets raped and impregnated as easily as they would on Bauer if he prevails in the Nevada state courts since his basis is in their mental maturity.

There is also no limiting principle in his argument either. Legally, a minor cannot consent under statutory rape. I don't know what Nevada's age of consent is, but Virginia's is fairly typical for red states at 16. If the judge prevails, and the slide down the slope continues, any pregnant minor could find herself having an abortion forced on her.

Right now, as far as I know all states have laws against forced abortion for minors, even by parents. These are not always enforced, though. My friends who work with crisis pregnancy centers tell me that they often have minors who are under enormous coercion if not outright force from parents, guardians, or boyfriends to have an abortion, and the people at the abortion clinic are not scrupulous about making sure the girl is not being forced. However, one could argue that for a judge to do it to, say, a mentally normal 14-year-old who could speak up loud and clear for herself would be legally highly difficult since it would be done in the open and with a court paper-trail behind it.

What seems to have fallen through the cracks here are situations involving mentally incompetent women whose mentality is much, much younger who therefore cannot speak up clearly and consistently for themselves.

Moreover, what it seems to me could happen even with a mentally normal pregnant minor would be that a judge would find a way to terminate parental rights or temporarily remove custody from the parents, perhaps on the pretext that they were negligent for letting her get pregnant, place the girl into an immersion situation where she was being hammered at all the time with arguments for having an abortion, and thus induce her eventually by what would more or less amount to brain-washing to say that she wants the abortion. This would be easier and easier the younger the girl in question and the less clearly she had her own wishes laid out in the first place.

Something a little bit like this appears to be going on in the pathetic statement that Elisa says she "wants the baby taken out," something she cannot possibly understand the implications of even if her doctor at the group home did get her to say it.

Right now, as far as I know all states have laws against forced abortion for minors, even by parents. These are not always enforced, though.

True, but I don't think that is stopping the judge in this case. He is using the incapacity to consent to sex as a basis to side step that legal protection. If he prevails on that logic and it becomes precedent, in another 10 years of sledding down the slippery slope it is possible that those laws could become meaningless if a judge decides to go after a girl under the age of consent.

I think the pedophilia angle here is secondary to the push for more power to spread the use of abortion. Pedophiles may benefit from the logic here, but the main evil being advanced here is a further increase in the power to kill the unborn.

True, but I don't think that is stopping the judge in this case. He is using the incapacity to consent to sex as a basis to side step that legal protection. If he prevails on that logic and it becomes precedent,

Seems to me that the more dangerous precedent is one that applies regardless of his argument that constructs some pretense of following what she "would want" if only she were competent. It is rather that of a judge just plain deciding to create a case before the court where NO PARTY with standing wants it before the court. What's next: a judge walking into my home and deciding that my kids having to go to bed at 9:30 is unfair, and choosing to bring a "case" at court to which I must reply even though there is no party who wants such a case? In criminal proceedings, "the state" takes a position that opposes the defendant's position that he ought to be free from restraint. In civil trials, a plaintiff sues on the basis of something he wants (and thinks he has a right to) from the defendant. In this situation, there is no "state" interest nor a plaintiff who wants to pursue something being withheld from him, is there?

Tony, that's another really troubling aspect. Every report I've seen on it, including Wesley J. Smith's evaluation (and he's a lawyer) indicates that that is correct. There were only informal meetings between the doctors and/or social workers and the judge prior to the initiation of these proceedings. Wesley also points out that apparently the parents were not even apprised that these meetings were taking place nor given a chance to have a voice in them. It was only after those informal contacts that the judge called them into the court.

Now, Child Protective Services _can_ file motions, all too easily, and get any family harassed they want--yes, literally, just demanding that the judge give them the right to walk into your house and engage in a fishing expedition because they had an anonymous complaint or something. And usually judges comply, unfortunately. What surprises me a bit here is that it sounds like the relevant social services department _didn't_ bother to file a motion of some kind. It would have been so easy to do so. Did they think the point was unimportant because the woman is disabled and not actually living with her adoptive parents, living in a group home, or what?

Suppose that the parents FAVORED an abortion for their daughter, but the daughter wished not to have an abortion. Would it still be just obvious that she cannot consent to pregnancy and that, in such a case, an abortion should be carried out against her will?

I don't know if that question is meant to be addressed to Judge Walker or not. As previous comments have indicated, most (all?) states have laws that supposedly forbid even parents from forcing a daughter to have an abortion against her will. However, it's not clear how such laws would be applied in the case of a daughter as severely mentally disabled as Elisa, who therefore is unlikely to be able to articulate a consistent, loud, and clear opposition to the abortion. The judge appears not even to be considering such laws in this case, and that, precisely because of Elisa's degree and state of mental disability.

In order to have a court ordered abortion, Elisa would have to be forced onto a table in some clinic somewhere, against her will, made to [overly graphic edited, LM] Most rapists never get past the cervix. But to get at the baby, you have to force open the cervix, at a time when nature intends for it to be tightly closed, and continue into the uterus, against Elisa's will. Then once in the uterus, they kill the baby, against Elisa's will. How come these so-called defenders of Elisa's rights fail to see the similarity between this scenario and a rape.
BTW: We don't know who the father of the baby is. [Total speculation edited LM] It wouldn't be the first time that abortion was used to cover up someone's acts of sexual abuse.

I agree with your general point concerning forced abortion, but we generally try to keep things a little "sweeter" here than that. As for the speculation about paternity, no such explanation is necessary. Elisa was being allowed to wander down to a truck stop and a casino, for goodness sake. She's also obviously surrounded by ideologues. Whitenack's comments also show anti-white racism which extends itself to a murderous attitude towards the child who might otherwise be adopted by whites.

By the way, since the judge has been allowed to proceed unstopped by the Nevada SC, he is due to make some kind of decision on November 27. Now he is said to be using a "best interests" standard. I suppose this means that he is abandoning the bizarre pretense of discovering what Elisa would want if she weren't disabled. A best interests standard is usual in family court for minors and those who are mentally incompetent. That still doesn't explain how the judge has a right to intervene at all, especially if nobody made a filing with him to rule on in the first place.

Let's pray about November 27 and about any subsequent appeals. At least the Bauers' lawyer seems to be on the ball.

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/11/13/judge-decides-november-27-on-forcing-mentally-disabled-woman-to-abort/

The matter came to the judge because a treating physician "wondered" if Elisa and we parents "disagreed" about allowing the baby to be born. Thus, we were suspected of violating Elisa's "rights".

What eventually happened is that thousands of people prayed for Elisa and her child, the judge and the four (4) opposing attorneys softened, we went to mediation, the judge dropped out, it was agreed that there will be no abortion, that we, as guardians, would allow the county Public Guardian to be the legal guardians, the judge came back on the scene and ordered reality to be as we had agreed in mediation.

It is not a perfect solution, but a life was hanging in the balance.

Mr. Bauer, thanks for this update, and thank God for a life saved! It's too bad you cannot continue at this time as Elisa's legal guardians, but perhaps that will be rectified soon as well. God bless!

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