Apparently, seeking a judicial bypass is evidence that you are not mature enough for a judicial bypass. In fact, being a minor is a huge strike against you:
After the hearing the judge found that “she lacked the maturity to decide whether to have an abortion.” The court emphasized her “unwillingness to communicate with her mother or consult with other adults, her focus on her own needs, and her failure to discuss the matter with a doctor.” The trial court also felt that she had “only minimal understanding of the risks of the abortion procedure” and that she was “unemployed and being supported by her mother.”
(Hat tip to lefarkins.)
Scott has also been blogging the Supreme Court’s recent decision to strike down school desegregation. Starts here, then here, here, and here.
Scott quotes from Justice Stevens’ dissent:
There is a cruel irony in The Chief Justice’s reliance on our decision in Brown v. Board of Education, The first sentence in the concluding paragraph of his opinion states: “Before Brown, schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on the color of their skin.” This sentence reminds me of Anatole France’s observation: “[T]he majestic equality of the la[w], forbid[s] rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” The Chief Justice fails to note that it was only black schoolchildren who were so ordered; indeed, the history books do not tell stories of white children struggling to attend black schools. In this and other ways, The Chief Justice rewrites the history of one of this Court’s most important decisions.
And this is the crux of the decision: decisions based on racial demographics that seek to repair inequalities–no matter how staggering–are exactly the same as the segregation, legal and informal, that created those inequalities in the first place.