In the year since a new Florida law required clinics to notify the parents of girls under 18 before performing an abortion, 450 teenagers asked the courts for an exception. A disproportionate number of those petitions, nearly a quarter of all statewide, were filed in Palm Beach County. All but one got permission.

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By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

WEST PALM BEACH – An agonizing secret has brought more than 100 teenage girls to the juvenile courthouse.

Many are top students, high school athletes, responsible kids with part-time jobs and college scholarships.

But they are also pregnant and determined to have an abortion without telling their parents.

During the year following July 2005, when a new Florida law required clinics to notify the parents of girls under 18 before performing an abortion, 450 teenagers asked the courts for an exception.

A disproportionate number of those petitions — nearly a quarter of all statewide — were filed in Palm Beach County. In the first year of the new law, 112 girls here asked for an abortion they planned to keep secret from their parents. All but one got permission.

The success rates are similar statewide: Only 27 girls out of the 450 were denied in the first year.

Few girls in Palm Beach County are telling judges they fear their parents will abuse them. More often, they say they fear their parents’ reaction or can’t face them after making such an embarrassing mistake. Teens seeking the waiver tend to be smart, attractive and ambitious, judges say — not the kind of girls who are used to letting anyone down.

“People would be surprised at the type of kid that comes in,” said Juvenile Court Judge Peter Blanc. “Good parents should not always assume that their children can talk to them.”

The new law has thrust juvenile judges into a role that makes some of them deeply uncomfortable. They are required to ask someone’s daughter intimate questions about sex and pregnancy, make a decision after hearing from only one side, and rule on murky concepts like whether she is mature enough to go ahead on her own.

The girls, who keep coming at a rate of 10 a month, make some judges wonder about their mothers and fathers.

Quite a few parents in Palm Beach County would be surprised if they knew their daughters went to “a stranger in a black robe” instead of to them, said Juvenile Court Judge Roger Colton.

“Consider,” Colton said, “that you are the parent and your daughter gets an abortion without your approval and without you even knowing it.”

The hearings have given the judges a rare window into the private lives of young women choosing to end a pregnancy. One told a judge she wants to be an obstetrician, because she loves children. Another confided that she always opposed abortion, until she became pregnant herself.

In North Florida, a 17-year-old Jane Doe told a judge that she made good grades, volunteered for charity and sang in her church choir. She said she didn’t want to give up a baby for adoption, but couldn’t afford college if she had to care for a child. According to court documents, she was afraid her mother would kick her out of the house. And she didn’t want to embarrass her grandmother, who was prominent in their community and had criticized other girls who got pregnant too young.

Some girls tell Palm Beach County judges they have no qualms about their choice and just want to get on with their plans for college and career.

Some are afraid their parents would pressure them to have the baby. Others say they can’t stand to go through a pregnancy, but worry that they might feel sad about the abortion for years to come.

The hearings are “soul-wrenching,” Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez said. “They are, without a doubt, the most upsetting thing that I do.”

65 PERCENT VOTER APPROVAL

The majority of states — 34, according to the Guttmacher Institute in New York — enforce laws that require abortion clinics to involve at least one parent of girls under age 18.

Proponents of the law got it on Florida’s ballot in 2004, and nearly 65 percent of voters supported it. Florida’s Parental Notice of Abortion Act says clinics must inform a parent 48 hours in advance, unless there is a medical emergency or the teen already has a child or supports herself.

A teen doesn’t have to tell her parents if juvenile court judges decide she is mature enough to make the decision on her own, that it is in her best interest to have an abortion without telling a parent, or that she is a victim of abuse.

In 2005, there were 226,219 births and 92,513 abortions in the state of Florida. But because Florida is one of few states that do not require clinics to report abortions by age, it is impossible to pinpoint how the number of teens winning an exemption to the rule compares to those telling their parents.

The Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization that researches reproductive health issues, gives a rough estimate of 6,500 abortions each year for girls under age 18 in Florida, based on 2000 statistics and percentages from other states. If those numbers held through 2005-06, when 450 girls asked the courts for a waiver, then about 93 percent of girls who had abortions told their parents first.

Counselors at Palm Beach County’s two abortion providers, Planned Parenthood of South Palm Beach & Broward Counties and the Presidential Women’s Center, said they strongly encourage teens to tell their parents about their pregnancies. The counselors use role-playing to help a teen prepare for an awkward conversation and offer to tell the parents themselves if the teen is too scared.

Though voters repeatedly have supported notification laws, many abortion-rights advocates still feel that they are unnecessary and misguided. And from the time the law passed, supporters of abortion rights mobilized to make the court hearings less intimidating for girls who say they cannot tell their parents.

The American Civil Liberties Union set up the PATH Project, which runs a toll-free hot line for pregnant girls and trains attorneys who volunteer to represent the girls statewide.

The Presidential Women’s Center in West Palm Beach gives teens a brochure that includes directions to the juvenile courthouse, a step-by-step guide about applying for a waiver and a list of eight specific questions a judge could ask.

It reassures girls that “across the country, the vast majority of patients who go before a judge are approved.”

ORANGE COUNTY HAS MOST

Two courthouses, in Orange and Palm Beach counties, have received more petitions than any others.

Orange County in the Orlando area has received the most cases, with only one denial among 142 girls hoping to have an abortion without telling their parents.

Orange also has one of the most streamlined application processes. Girls are assigned an attorney as soon as they apply for the waiver, and judges typically clear their courtrooms to hear their cases within an hour or two.

Mimi Rollins, who works for the court administrator there, said most of the girls came from other counties.

“We hardly have any that are from Orange,” Rollins said. “The clinics usually send them to us because they know it is quick, fast and easy.”

Conservatives worry that girls are seeking out friendly judges, but Susan Derwin, who heads the ACLU’s PATH project, said clinics send the teens to Orange County because they can get an attorney there.

The high numbers in Palm Beach County are harder to explain. The local courts do not appoint attorneys automatically, but like Orange, the county has a near 100 percent approval rate, with 130 cases approved through August and only one dismissed.

Those numbers far exceed those in other large counties. Miami-Dade County, for example, has nearly twice the population of Palm Beach and 20 licensed abortion clinics. But only 69 girls asked for a waiver through August.

Judge Alvarez said some girls from surrounding counties are filing in Palm Beach because local clinics direct them to the courthouse here.

The only abortion clinic in the four-county Treasure Coast is in Fort Pierce, so some girls from Martin and Okeechobee find it more convenient to travel to Palm Beach County for an abortion.

But Judge Colton said he has seen few girls from other counties. “By far, the majority” live in Palm Beach County, Colton said.

Mona Reis, who heads the Presidential Women’s Center, says the clinic makes girls aware of their legal right to go to court but would never encourage them to forgo notification. She said she does not know why Palm Beach County’s numbers might be higher than other counties.

Maybe there isn’t a reason, Reis said.

Judges typically ask the girl how she and her partner failed to prevent the pregnancy and what she plans to do to keep from getting pregnant again.

“It’s a very uncomfortable thing, especially for a male judge, to be asking a young female these types of questions,” Alvarez said.

But some of the judges’ discomfort also comes from the fact that these hearings are different from anything else they do. Judges are accustomed to ruling after weighing expert testimony and stories from both sides. But in the case of a waiver, judges can hear only from the girl herself.

In the end, Blanc said, “I really have to go on what she tells me.”

Many cases hinge on whether judges consider the girl “sufficiently mature” to decide. The idea of maturity is “really so subjective,” Blanc said. “It seems like more of a moral and character decision than a legal one.”

Judges approve most of the cases, Colton said, because appellate judges have ruled that teens do not need to have the maturity of an adult to terminate a pregnancy without telling a parent. The First District Court of Appeal wrote in April that the court simply needs to determine whether the “minor has the necessary emotional development, intellect and understanding to make an informed decision regarding terminating her pregnancy.”

During the past few weeks, too recently for the case to show up in state statistics, Blanc denied his first teen for lack of sufficient maturity. A clinic sent the girl to court as a precaution, but she didn’t need Blanc’s approval because she was a mother.

MANY FEAR PARENTS’ ANGER

State Rep. John Stargel, R-Lakeland, thought that the bypass should be a way to help girls from abusive families, not an easy out for those trying to avoid a difficult conversation. He wasn’t surprised that many teens seeking a waiver are from good families.

“If you didn’t care about your parents and what they thought, you’d run home and ‘say, ‘Guess what, and what are you going to do about it?’ ” Stargel said. “But these are girls who don’t want to hurt their parents. And the reverse of that is also true.”

Stargel, whose term ends after the November elections, said his passion for the issue came from his own experience. When he was 19, he got his 17-year-old girlfriend pregnant. They decided to get married and have the baby. Their daughter was born five months after the wedding, and they are still together more than two decades later.

Many teens fear their parents’ anger, he said, but would be surprised by how they react.

Concerned that the bypass amounted to a rubber stamp, Stargel proposed a bill last session that would have made it more difficult for girls to win a waiver. Legislators who wrote the original law “didn’t put enough meat on the bones,” he thought. But his bill died in the House.

Abortion-rights activists say it would be dangerous to tighten the rules or force girls to wait any longer to have an abortion. They point to the case of Becky Bell, who was so determined to avoid Indiana’s tough parental notification law that she resorted to an illegal abortion. She died of complications in 1988, at age 17. Her parents became activists, speaking out about the notification laws across the country.

But Sheila Hopkins of the Florida Catholic Conference said girls from loving families should not have to deal with a pregnancy without the support of their parents. She worries about how the girls who try to handle it on their own will cope with their emotions.

“This should be a family decision, not this girl out there all alone with an attorney,” she said.

Judge Colton said he doesn’t know what the teens do after they step out of the courthouse, his ruling in hand.

Maybe they go straight to the clinic. Maybe they change their minds. Maybe one day, they tell their parents what happened.

Colton doesn’t like to dwell on that. Usually, he never sees them again.

Copyright 2006 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
October 29, 2006 Sunday
FINAL EDITION
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WEST PALM BEACH – The foster teen who fought for her right to have an abortion last year was back in juvenile court Tuesday, tears streaming down her face.

L.G. is 15 now and pregnant for the second time. Her round stomach showed through her blue detention jumpsuit.

For years, she has been a chronic runaway, slipping out of almost every place the state has tried to keep her. She now faces a charge of failure to appear for a criminal mischief arrest.

But her only real crime, her attorney argued, was running away from foster care.

L.G. asked Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Peter Blanc not to commit her to a program for juvenile offenders. The Department of Children and Families just wants to lock her up, L.G. believes, so she won’t be its responsibility anymore.

But Blanc said Tuesday he can’t risk her taking off. She is five months pregnant, and the adults trying to help her agree it is time for her to stop running.

Because L.G. wants to keep her child, Blanc plans to commit her to a secure Department of Juvenile Justice program where she can keep her baby. The state runs several programs in which teenage mothers can learn to care for their infants while completing their sentences. Blanc said he wants more information on the different facilities and will decide next week which type would be best for L.G.

The girl made national news in April 2005 when DCF attorneys went to court to stop her from having an abortion. L.G.’s attorneys successfully argued that it was her decision to make.

Last fall, she ran away from a local runaway shelter. She was missing for eight months, and while gone, got pregnant again. She turned herself in on juvenile criminal charges in May.

L.G. has been in foster care since her ninth birthday, when she was taken from her mother’s house. The court terminated her mother’s rights to her, but L.G. just wanted to go home. Almost every time she ran, she returned to her mother in West Palm Beach.

She has exasperated those who try to work with her. At Tuesday’s hearing, her own guardian ad litem called her “incorrigible.” L.G. rarely agrees to speak to her, the guardian said, telling her she is “nosy” and to mind her own business.

L.G. doesn’t cooperate with counselors or therapists and refused to attend school while staying at the runaway shelter, DCF attorney Linda Spector said.

“Yeah, but I told them I didn’t like that school,” L.G. answered.

Spector told the judge that L.G. was staying with her mother during the past eight months. L.G.’s mother, who is not allowed to contact L.G., denies letting her daughter live at her home.

The mother said she thinks L.G. turned herself in because she told her she couldn’t pay for her doctor visits. L.G. has said she thinks her mother chose her boyfriend over her, an attorney said.

Blanc asked L.G. why she turned herself in.

She sat silently, and started to cry. She finally said: “I didn’t want to be with my mom anymore. I thought if I went to DCF, they would put me in a maternity home to be with my baby. But they aren’t doing that. They just want to lock me up.”

Copyright 2006 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
June 21, 2006 Wednesday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 1B
LENGTH: 512 words

The foster child who made national news last year when the state of Florida went to court to prevent her from having an abortion is pregnant again.

“L.G.,” who turned 15 this month, is due to deliver a baby boy Nov. 1, her mother said.

The teenager first got pregnant at 13 after running away from a state group home. Attorneys with the Florida Department of Children and Families petitioned a juvenile court judge to stop her from terminating her pregnancy, saying the state could not consent to an abortion.

But the foster teen’s attorneys successfully argued that the decision was L.G.’s to make. She ended her pregnancy May 3, 2005.

Her story, which came just months after the government’s interference in the Terri Schiavo case, grabbed headlines across the country.

But not much changed for L.G.

The teen has been in foster care since her ninth birthday, when she was removed from her mother’s house amid allegations of abuse. The state terminated her mother’s parental rights but failed to find L.G. a permanent home.

By the time she was 13, L.G. was a chronic runaway, often returning to her mother’s house.

After L.G. had her abortion, leaders at Palm Beach County’s foster care agency privately considered whether to take the unusual step of returning the teen to the mother who had lost all legal rights to her.

But that plan fell through. L.G. ended up in a local runaway shelter where, according to her mother, she got in a confrontation with a worker and was charged with a felony after allegedly damaging the woman’s car.

She ran from state custody again in September and was gone for eight months. While missing, her mother said, she had unprotected sex with an 18-year-old man in Miami.

L.G. went to doctors for prenatal care, her mother said, but didn’t use Medicaid so the state couldn’t find her. She asked doctors to send the medical bills to her mother’s house. Her mother said she told L.G. she had no way to pay them.

In May, L.G. turned herself in. She is now in the custody of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and could be sent to a locked program for young offenders.

At 13, she told Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez that she wanted an abortion because she didn’t want the baby to grow up in foster care.

This time, her mother said, L.G. wants to keep her baby. The mother does not think her daughter’s second pregnancy was an accident.

Some teenagers who get pregnant while in foster care succeed in keeping their children, with help from local programs for young mothers. Others lose them to the same foster care system that raised them. The decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, Department of Children and Families spokeswoman Marilyn Munoz said.

L.G.’s mother said she would like to hire an attorney to fight for her daughter but doesn’t have the money. She said the state does not allow her to contact L.G.

The two of them are a lot alike, she said:

“She’s smart. She’s a survivor. And she’s had to fight her whole life, just like me.”

Copyright 2006 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
June 16, 2006 Friday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 1B
LENGTH: 502 words

The Diocese of Palm Beach distanced itself Friday from an employee’s statement that the judge who allowed a 13-year-old foster child to have an abortion should be denied communion.

Don Kazimir, who heads the diocesan Respect Life Office, called the judge this week to say the church might have a problem with a Catholic judge permitting an abortion.

Judge Ronald Alvarez ruled that the state does not have a right to stop the foster teen known as L.G. from ending her pregnancy.

She had the abortion Tuesday, after Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the state to drop its appeals.

Alvarez was upset by Kazimir’s call, which he said was an inappropriate attempt to intimidate the judiciary.

In a written statement, Bishop Gerald Barbarito said Kazimir was expressing his own opinion, not that of the local church.

“The Diocese of Palm Beach has never made any statement in regard to the recent action of Judge Alvarez,” he wrote.

There is wide disagreement within the church on whether Catholic priests should deny communion to public officials who support abortion rights. Barbarito doesn’t want to take a public position in that debate but has never suggested he would deny communion, diocese spokesman Jim Brosemer said Friday.

According to the phone message taken Wednesday by Alvarez’s assistant, Kazimir originally said the diocese had asked him to investigate the issue and asked where Alvarez went to church.

He told The Palm Beach Post Thursday that he was only speaking for himself, and did not consult any supervisors before calling Alvarez.

Prominent local attorney Ed Ricci, who is Catholic, said Friday that if Kazimir did misrepresent his authority, he “should be publicly reprimanded for stepping out of line.”

Brosemer said that Barbarito did speak with Kazimir after learning of his call to Alvarez, but declined to say what the bishop told Kazimir or whether he was unhappy with the employee.

Kazimir has headed the diocese’s Respect Life Office for a decade – organizing rallies, counseling women, lobbying officials and speaking against abortion, euthanasia and the death penalty.

He is the office’s only paid employee but leads a team of about 50 volunteers in the five-county area. Other dioceses around the country have similar offices.

Kazimir said he feels so passionately about the issue that he felt he had to try to speak with Alvarez.

The judge, who considers himself Catholic but has not attended church since the priest sex abuse scandal three years ago, did not return his call.

Kazimir agrees with a conservative wing of the church that feels priests should deny communion to public figures who enable abortions.

Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops tentatively agreed not to universally ban priests from giving communion to pro-choice politicians. But individual bishops may deny communion if they choose.

Some bishops said last year that Catholic presidential candidate John Kerry should be denied communion because he has repeatedly worked for laws that support abortion rights.

In 2004, while still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI explained that the church’s position is that a Catholic politician who “is consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws,” is cooperating in a “grave sin.”

If the errant politician repeatedly asks for communion, and ignores warnings from his priest to change his views, the minister of communion must refuse to give it, he wrote.

In the pope’s view, even Catholics who vote for political candidates specifically because those candidates support abortion or euthanasia rights should not ask for communion.

But the role of a Catholic judge like Alvarez is more complicated, because judges don’t make laws but take an oath to uphold those that already exist.

In a November 2002 doctrinal note, Ratzinger addressed the role of Catholic public figures who live under laws the church believes are immoral.

Those officials have a duty to oppose laws allowing abortion and euthanasia by conscientious objection, he wrote. If they must follow those laws, they should work to minimize the harm that is done.

But Ricci said Alvarez had no choice but to rule the way he did. The state didn’t have the right to stop L.G.’s abortion, Ricci said, and Alvarez couldn’t legally prevent the abortion either.

“Once we start violating the law we’re on the way to anarchy,” Ricci said. “If you don’t like the law, then go to the legislature and get it changed.”

Ricci, who is pro-life, said Kazimir made a mistake in trying to pressure a judge.

“I would hope the people in the right to life movement, who I respect and strongly support, will realize that this is the wrong battle in the wrong venue,” Ricci said.

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
May 7, 2005 Saturday
FINAL EDITION
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LENGTH: 784 words

WEST PALM BEACH – From the moment a 13-year-old foster child told her caseworker that she wanted an abortion, nobody knew exactly what to do.

There was no history, no procedure.

The caseworker wanted to help the girl known as L.G., but she didn’t want to say the wrong thing or inadvertently break the law, her boss said Wednesday.

“Here we have a very committed person who has a lot of mixed feelings herself about abortion. . . . She was probably tied up in knots with what to do,” said Robert Barker, executive director of Palm Beach County’s private foster care agency, Child and Family Connections.

The caseworker didn’t offer an opinion on whether to end the pregnancy. But she did agree to drive the girl to an appointment at a local abortion clinic.

The head of the Florida Department of Children and Families then went to court to stop L.G. from ending her pregnancy, and the case became national news.

The battle ended Tuesday, when the state dropped its appeals and L.G. quietly ended her pregnancy at a local clinic.

Certainly, Barker said, mistakes were made – “this is the first case we’ve had like this.”

Attorneys who represent teens in foster care say abortions are normally private procedures, handled without state involvement or knowledge. But L.G.’s case raised the question of what caseworkers can and cannot do once they do find out about an unwanted pregnancy.

CASEWORKER ROLE UNCLEAR

Foster care agencies will have to decide the proper role for a caseworker who answers to the state, but also may be the only adult trusted by a frightened girl. They aren’t sure if the caseworker should discuss abortion or drive the girl to the final appointment. And they still wrestle with the question of who, if anyone, has the right to decide what is in a pregnant teen’s best interest.

There is no manual of what to do in those cases, Barker said. He plans to meet today with officials from the local DCF office to discuss the lessons of L.G.’s case.

In the future, caseworkers may not drive the girl to the abortion, Barker said, leaving that to her friends, foster parents or attorneys.

And in the future, all supervisors should be notified if a girl wants to end a pregnancy, he said. In this case, attorneys for the state knew about the girl’s decision for two weeks, but Barker didn’t find out until the night before the abortion was to take place that the caseworker, employed by a subcontractor, was planning to take her.

Child and Family Connections, which runs foster care programs under state contract, also will look at how to prevent girls from getting pregnant in the first place.

L.G. ran away from a state group home in St. Petersburg in January and got pregnant before the state found her a month later.

Her mother, who lost her rights for abuse and neglect, believes L.G. was picked up from the streets by a 30-year-old man who gave her alcohol and drugs and manipulated her into having sex.

The Pinellas County State Attorney’s Office and St. Petersburg police have opened a criminal investigation. If the father is 30, he could face a second-degree felony charge of lewd and lascivious molestation for having sex with a girl under the age of 16.

Police said another young girl who lived in the same state home in St. Petersburg also may be a victim of sexual exploitation. The girl, also 13, ran away in February and told police that while gone, she was raped by a 19- or 20-year-old man.

That case is still open, St. Petersburg police spokesman George Kajtsa said.

Prosecutors can use a DNA sample from the abortion to help identify the man who got L.G. pregnant.

“It is my understanding, without going into any details as to how I know this, that a biological sample was saved for criminal prosecution,” said Beverly Andringa, who heads the felony division with the state attorney’s office. “It is my understanding that this was done at the judge’s instructions.”

Barker said he believes foster care agencies can do a better job talking with kids about the dangers of sex. Out of about 350 teenage girls in state custody in Palm Beach County, four are mothers and five more are pregnant.

That’s not a higher rate than the general population, Barker said, but even one is too many.

Last week, Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez blasted the state for failing to do more to find L.G. while she was living on the streets. The girl misses her mother, and she often runs from foster care.

A Pinellas caseworker immediately notified St. Petersburg police when she left the state home in that city. Police then could enter her name into a database of missing children, so other agencies knew to look for her.

BIGGEST JOB: FINDING HOMES

The Department of Children and Families and the courts also should have been notified, but DCF got notice several days late and Palm Beach County judges never knew L.G. was missing.

Those problems are easy to fix. More difficult, Barker said, is finding L.G. and other teens stuck in foster care a home where they will want to stay.

The agency has nearly doubled the county’s yearly adoption rate. And recently, Barker asked consultants to help with the children who had been in foster care for years. The consulants’ efforts helped find permanent homes for about 100 children and teens.

But not for L.G.

Like many children in foster care, L.G. still loves the family the state said abused and neglected her. She doesn’t want to be in state care, but she is barred from living with her mother until she turns 18.

And until she is happy, she may continue to run.

“I worry about any girl who is 13 growing up miserable for the next five years,” Barker said.

Staff writer Emily J. Minor contributed to this story.

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
May 5, 2005 Thursday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 945 words

WEST PALM BEACH – A 13-year-old foster child ended her pregnancy Tuesday, hours after Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the state to stop all intervention in her case.

A juvenile court judge cleared the way for the girl’s abortion in a final hearing Tuesday morning. The girl was taken to a clinic soon afterward, said her attorney, Maxine Williams of Palm Beach County’s Legal Aid Society.

The 13-year-old, known by her initials L.G., had no complications, Williams said late Tuesday.

“She was relieved. And ready to get it over with,” she said.

The case set off a national debate when the head of the Florida Department of Children and Families ordered her attorneys to stop the abortion in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Gov. Jeb Bush said Tuesday that the state agency was right to show concern for the life of L.G.’s unborn child and to consult a judge before L.G. made an important decision.

“The department did the right thing to make the initial appeal, to make sure that this was reviewed carefully. We’re talking about the loss of a life,” Bush said Tuesday morning.

But he said it was now time for the state to drop its appeals and respect the decision of Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez, who ruled Monday that L.G. could have the abortion.

“I said, ‘Look, if the judge has ruled, it’s time to move on,’ ” Bush said.

But the state’s short-lived attempt to block the abortion infuriated critics, who said it was another case of conservative political leaders putting pro-life idealogy ahead of the law. They compared the intervention with Bush’s attempts to stop a judge from ending the life of severely brain damaged Terri Schiavo, who died March 31 at age 41.

“I think this has just been a terrible manipulation of the courts by DCF to advance a political agenda over the best interests of a 13-year-old child,” said James K. Green, who argued the girl’s abortion rights in the case for the American Civil Liberties union.

It is unconstitutional, he said, for the state to force a 13-year-old to carry a pregnancy to term against her wishes. “I wish the governor had come to that recognition a week ago.”

DCF officials have declined comment on whether they consulted with the governor’s office before going into court to stop the abortion April 26.

The case galvanized both sides of the abortion debate and got national attention. One attorney repeatedly called the courthouse, volunteering to represent the fetus. Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, wrote a letter to the governor asking him not to “surrender this unborn child to the hands of his would-be slayers.” The Palm Beach County Right to Life League plans a protest at the courthouse today.

But though the ruling was closely followed, attorneys do not believe it will set a new precedent or change state policy. Appeals court judges did not settle the central issue raised by the case – who, if anyone, has the right to speak for a pregnant teen with no parents? If the state asks to stop another girl’s abortion, judges will have to consider the same issue again.

The ACLU argued L.G’s constitutional right to choose, saying that no one but L.G. had the right to decide what was in her best interests. The organization believes Alvarez should have simply tossed out the motion to stop the abortion, saying he had no right to decide the issue for L.G.

But Alvarez agreed to hear evidence on the medical and emotional risks of abortion, as well as a court psychologist’s assessment of her mental state, before deciding she could go ahead with the abortion.

Williams and other attorneys who represent foster children have said they have no doubt that girls in state care have a right to make up their own minds without interference. The Florida Supreme Court repeatedly has ruled that minors do not have to get their parents’ permission before having an abortion.

Because L.G.’s parents lost their right to raise her, the lawyers said, the state serves as her legal custodian. But the state has no more right to stop her from ending the pregnancy than her biological parents would, they argued.

But Gov. Jeb Bush and others have said the DCF was acting as a good parent when it asked the court to review the case.

“There is an added responsibility where the state has some degree of responsibility over the well-being of that child,” Bush said Tuesday.

DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi expressed the same view.

“We acted on the best interests of the child,” Hadi said.

GIRL IN FOSTER CARE SINCE 9

L.G. has been in state care since her ninth birthday, when child abuse investigators picked her up at a day care.

Her former mother, who lives in West Palm Beach, said the little girl was expecting presents and a pizza party that night, but never came home.

The state ended her parents’ rights in 2001 because of abuse and neglect.

Since then, L.G. has lived in foster and group homes. A family adopted her younger brother, but couldn’t take her.

L.G. is unhappy in foster care and has repeatedly run away.

The last time she ran away, she was gone for nearly a month. The agency notified police near the group home she left in Pinellas County, but Alvarez was infuriated that the court wasn’t notified that she was missing. The state, he said, should have done more to find her instead of rushing into court once she was pregnant.

Her mother said L.G. told her a 28- or 30-year-old man picked her up from the streets, gave her alcohol and drugs and had sex with her at his house. The Palm Beach Post is not naming the mother to protect L.G.’s identity.

The woman said she called the police to report a statutory rape, furious that the state considered her an unfit parent but then failed to protect her daughter from a man she believes exploited her.

Beverly Andringa, who supervises the felony division of the Pinellas County State Attorney’s Office, said Tuesday she couldn’t find any reports that L.G. might have been the victim of a crime. But she said she definitely would investigate.

“We don’t have a case, but maybe we should,” Andringa said.

L.G. found out she was pregnant at a doctor’s appointment about three weeks ago. She met with a counselor, weighed the risks and decided that she did not want a baby. A caseworker with a private foster care agency helped her schedule the abortion for April 26.

That same day, DCF attorneys rushed into court on Hadi’s orders, asking Alvarez to issue an emergency order stopping the procedure.

In a recording of that initial hearing obtained by The Post, Alvarez greeted the team of attorneys from the local office of DCF in his court.

“What do I owe this honor to? Three lawyers from the Department of Children and Families? . . . I don’t usually get this type of attention,” Alvarez said.

DCF attorney Jeffrey Gillen cited a state law that prohibits his agency from consenting to an abortion. He said the state had little information about L.G.’s condition. The state didn’t know if she might face complications with the pregnancy or if the fetus was healthy and didn’t believe she was emotionally equipped to make a decision, Gillen said.

Alvarez then asked if the state was asking him to simply postpone the abortion, or block it entirely.

“It would be a permanent injunction your honor,” Gillen said, “and we would. . . . ”

Alvarez interrupted.

“A permanent injunction and you’ve already stated you don’t know if this is going to cause her to lose her own life?” he said.

“Oh my.”

The Legal Aid Society, which had represented the girl for years, objected to even a temporary hold on the girl’s abortion, saying she had the right to choose.

Legal Aid and the ACLU challenged Alvarez’s decision in the 4th District Court of Appeal, arguing that he had no right to make a decision for L.G. The attorneys later withdrew those motions, allowing Alvarez to rule Monday.

He said at that hearing that his decision was difficult morally, but not legally. “I’m not here to make the moral decision. I’m here to make the legal decisions,” he said. He allowed the abortion to go ahead.

The state immediately appealed, but withdrew its challenges on Bush’s order.

CASE IS ‘TRAGEDY,’ BUSH SAYS

The two sides in the abortion debate remained divided by the case.

Lillian Tamayo, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of north Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast, blasted the state for interfering in the case. L.G. did everything right, Tamayo said – she spoke with an adult, talked to counselors, weighed the risks and then made her own decision.

“Forcing this baby to have a baby – what’s humane about that?” Tamayo said. “I was very disturbed by these actions. It’s just one more example of this governor’s intrusion into personal private family matters.”

Palm Beach County Right to Life League President Frances Fitzgerald said she was disappointed.

“We need to take care of both of them. We need to take care of the baby and the young mother,” she said.

But all said they felt for a girl who said she would rather have an abortion than deliver her own child to the state foster care system.

Though some had offered to take the baby, no one has come forward to adopt L.G.

Anticipating the abortion early Tuesday, Bush said it was a sad ending to a sad case.

“It’s a tragedy that a 13-year-old child would be in a vulnerable position where she could be made pregnant and it’s a tragedy that her baby will be lost,” he said. “There’s no good news in this at all.”

Staff writers Rochelle Brenner, John Pacenti and Susan Spencer-Wendel and Special Correspondent Dara Kam contributed to this story.

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
May 4, 2005 Wednesday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 1601 words

WEST PALM BEACH – A judge has refused to allow the state to stop the abortion of a 13-year-old foster child, two sources said Monday.

Ronald Alvarez, Palm Beach County Juvenile Court judge, issued the ruling Monday morning, a week after the state Department of Children and Families asked him to permanently block the girl from ending her pregnancy.

The court did not release the text of the order, citing laws designed to protect the privacy of juveniles. A spokeswoman for DCF would not comment on whether the agency would appeal the decision.

Attorneys involved in the case would not comment on the order or on whether an abortion had been scheduled or had taken place Monday.

The 13-year-old, known as L.G., became pregnant after running from a state group home in January. She is living in a Palm Beach County shelter.

In a hearing before Alvarez on Thursday, she said she didn’t feel she could raise a baby.

“I don’t think I should have the baby because I’m 13, I’m in a shelter and I can’t get a job,” she said.

Frustrated with the state’s delay, she asked the judge: “Why can’t I make my own decision?”

The girl found out nearly three weeks ago at a doctor’s appointment that she was pregnant, and she is now in her second trimester. A caseworker for a private foster-care agency planned to drive her to a clinic to get the abortion on April 26.

But DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi directed her attorneys to stop the procedure, citing a state law that says the agency cannot consent to an abortion. Alvarez agreed to temporarily postpone the abortion until he could get evidence on whether an abortion was in the girl’s best interest.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County challenged Alvarez’s right to decide the case, saying that neither the courts nor the state had the right to speak for L.G.

The Florida Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that a minor does not have to get her parents’ permission before ending a pregnancy.

Because L.G.’s parents’ rights were terminated for abuse and neglect, she has no custodian but the state. But the ACLU and Legal Aid contended the state has no more right than biological parents to bar L.G. from an abortion.

Alvarez listened to testimony on the medical and emotional risks of pregnancy and abortion during Thursday’s hearing, which was open to the media and public. While hearings are open, however, all written pleadings and orders in juvenile cases are kept confidential under state laws intended to protect juveniles.

Alvarez also met privately with the girl and her guardian during the hearing.

L.G. bluntly asked Alvarez why she wasn’t allowed to make up her own mind about the abortion, according to a recording of the meeting.

“You don’t know? Aren’t you the judge?” she said.

“I am the judge,” Alvarez said. “I have to decide whether you should be the one to make the decision, or I make the decision or let the DCF make the decision.”

The girl told the judge she was struck by the fact that a counselor told her a pregnancy would be riskier than abortion.

“Since you guys are supposedly here for the best interest of me, then wouldn’t y’all look at the fact that it would be more dangerous for me to have the baby than to have the abortion?”

Alvarez told her she had “a very good point.”

L.G. wouldn’t answer Alvarez’s question about who impregnated her, saying only “a boy.”

The teen has run from state foster care at least five times and was gone for a month the last time when she became pregnant.

Her biological mother, who lives in West Palm Beach and lost her rights to L.G. in 2001, said L.G. called her on a borrowed cellphone, then a pay phone in February. She had run away from her group home on the west coast of Florida and wanted to come home, her former mother said.

The West Palm Beach woman, whom The Palm Beach Post is not identifying to protect L.G.’s identity, is barred from living with her biological daughter. Detectives often call her when L.G. runs away to ask whether she has heard from the girl.

But she said she couldn’t leave L.G. in danger, so she drove to the west coast to look for her. She found her on the streets at 3 a.m.

L.G. told her she had been living with a 28- or 30-year-old man who lived just blocks from the state home and took her in when she ran away.

The woman said she called law enforcement to report a statutory rape.

“I’m angry at the extremes they go to to keep her from me, yet they don’t keep her away from sexual predators,” she said.

She knew immediately that L.G. was pregnant.

“I said, ‘(L.G.), have you been having sex?’ and she said, ‘No, Mama, I’m still a virgin.’ I said ‘(L.G.), look at me, honey. Your complexion is going. You’re throwing up. You can’t hold nothing down. You’re pregnant.’ ”

The woman said she later acknowledged to law enforcement that she had found L.G. The girl returned to a state home at the end of February.

L.G. has been in foster care since child-abuse investigators came to get her from her day-care center on her ninth birthday, the woman said. The girl thought she was coming home to gifts and a pizza party later that night.

But caseworkers said it wasn’t safe for L.G. to go back home. A judge terminated parental rights the next year. And though state officials found an adoptive family for her younger brother, they couldn’t find one for L.G.

She runs, her mother said, because she doesn’t like foster care. She misses her family.

In her court hearing Thursday, L.G. was alternately quiet and defiant.

She doesn’t want to have a child, she told Alvarez, if the state is going to put the baby in foster care.

“If I do have it, I’m not going to let them take it,” she said.

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
May 3, 2005 Tuesday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 940 words

The head of the Florida Department of Children and Families personally decided that her agency should go to court to stop a 13-year-old foster child from having an abortion.

DCF Secretary Lucy Hadi reviewed the case and felt she could not allow the girl to end the pregnancy before notifying a juvenile court judge, Marilyn Munoz, spokeswoman for the agency in Palm Beach County, said Friday.

“The judge had no knowledge of the young girl’s condition, so Secretary Hadi requested that we . . . inform the judge and ask for an injunction to request time for him to review the case,” Munoz said.

Many legal experts believe that the case of the foster child identified as L.G. may be the first of its kind in Florida. At issue is whether the state agency or the court has the right to consider whether the abortion is in her best interest – or whether the girl’s constitutional right to choose bans both from getting involved.

A Florida law on the books for years says the state agency cannot consent to an abortion in any case.

But attorneys who work with foster children say DCF has rarely used that law to block an abortion sought by a child in foster care. Hadi’s decision goes against state Supreme Court rulings that girls do not need parents’ permission to get an abortion, some said.

Attorney Carolyn Salisbury, who represents children in foster care through the University of Miami’s Children and Youth Law Clinic, said girls have been having abortions for decades without interference.

Normally, state caseworkers aren’t involved, Salisbury said. A foster parent, attorney or friend drives the girl to the appointment. A private organization in Miami-Dade County donates money for the abortions so the state doesn’t have to pay. In some cases, she said, the state never even knows.

“There’s no reason for the state to know. It’s a private decision,” she said.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County agree, contending the state’s action to block the abortion violates the girl’s constitutional right to choose.

Her biological parents lost their rights for abusing and neglecting her, so the state serves as her legal custodian. But the state can’t intervene because of L.G.’s right to privacy and individual choice, the organizations argue.

SHIFTING LEGAL STANCE

L.G. ran away from a group home on the west coast of Florida in January. She was told she was pregnant at a doctor’s appointment about two weeks ago. A caseworker with the Children’s Home Society, which handles some Palm Beach County foster care programs under contract with the state, helped the girl make an appointment at a West Palm Beach abortion clinic.

Maxine Williams, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society who has represented the girl since before her pregnancy, believes she should be allowed to end the pregnancy without state intervention.

Williams knew about a Florida law that says “in no case shall the department consent to sterilization, abortion or termination of life support.” But she told an attorney for the state that the girl’s constitutional right to choose trumped everything else.

The attorney for the state initially seemed to agree with that position, Williams said Friday. The caseworker seemed uncomfortable with the situation and didn’t want to appear to be supporting or opposing the abortion, Williams said.

But the caseworker did agree to drive L.G. to the Presidential Women’s Center on April 26 to have the abortion. Hadi asked her attorneys to go into court to stop the abortion the same day.

Judges with the 4th District Court of Appeal now will decide whether a local judge has a right to decide the case.

Gov. Jeb Bush, though staunchly pro-life, has remained silent about the case. He did intervene in a DCF case two years ago when he asked the courts to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a severely disabled woman who was raped in a group home.

The governor’s last pick to head the state agency was Jerry Regier, a conservative Christian who was criticized for letting his ideology get in the way of helping children. Regier pushed a federal marriage initiative and character education program for state employees.

Bush replaced Regier with Hadi after a contracting scandal at the agency last year. Hadi served as an administrator in the agency for decades under both Republican and Democratic governors, and she does not have a reputation for partisan politics.

Randall Terry, former leader of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, jumped into the case Friday with a letter asking the governor to intervene.

“Please fight for this baby’s life, and do not surrender this unborn child to the hands of his would-be slayers under any circumstances,” he wrote.

Many attorneys who represent children in the state foster care system said they were sorry to see a young girl have to endure a public debate about her abortion. L.G. did not want her case to become an issue, Williams said.

“She really would have preferred to have kept all of this very private,” Williams said.

In the past decade, Salisbury has represented 10 or 12 girls who chose to have an abortion, she said. Only one case was challenged, she said.

About five years ago, she was in court when an attorney for DCF argued that a judge would have to consent to the abortion. Salisbury objected, citing a Florida Supreme Court ruling in the case of teenager T.W., which held that she was allowed to have an abortion without her parents’ consent.

The DCF attorney agreed and quickly dropped the objection, Salisbury said. “It was quashed in less than five minutes.”

She believes the state is misreading the law that says officials cannot give permission to end a pregnancy.

“No one is asking DCF to consent to the abortion,” she said. “L.G. has the right to consent to her own abortion.”

Some have criticized the state for not doing more to prevent the girl from running away and getting pregnant in the first place. Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez said in a Thursday hearing that he was angry DCF did not notify the court that she was missing.

DCF spokeswoman Munoz said the agency did notify local law enforcement. Williams said workers told her they were trying to find her.

Others have questioned why caseworkers have not been able to find an adoptive home for the girl, who has been in state care since 1998.

L.G. NOW IN A SHELTER

David May, former head of the agency in Palm Beach County, said much of the criticism directed at DCF is unfair. Short of locking them in – a measure no one supports – it is difficult to keep unhappy teenagers from running away, he said. Also, there aren’t enough qualified families willing to adopt older children.

“Everyone is trying to find a public official to point a finger at,” he said. “I take it personally because I know some of these people, and I see how tired they look in the evening.”

Adoption rates have stayed well above state averages in Palm Beach County, and caseworkers do their best, May said. With the national attention the case has generated, maybe a family will come forward to offer L.G. a home.

“There must be somebody out there somewhere,” May said.

Foster care has been hard for the girl, as it is for most children, Williams said. L.G. has run away from state homes at least five times and was gone for a month when she got pregnant.

And now the country is debating her most private choice.

L.G. is living in a Palm Beach County shelter for children who have nowhere else to go. Williams doesn’t know of any immediate plans for her future.

“There’s no one to hug her good night and there’s no one she feels close to and we haven’t been able to give her that,” Williams said. “I wish we could.”

Staff writer Susan Spencer-Wendel contributed to this story.

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
April 30, 2005 Saturday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 1288 words

WEST PALM BEACH – A judge said Thursday he was outraged that the Florida Department of Children and Families did not do more to prevent a 13-year-old foster child from getting pregnant.

Before rushing into court to stop her from having an abortion, Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez said, the state should have done more to get her off the streets. He discovered during a Thursday hearing that the girl has run away from state homes at least five times and was gone for a month when she became pregnant early this year.

The Department of Children and Families failed to even notify the court that she was gone so police could try to find her, Alvarez said.

“To say I am angry is an understatement,” he said.

Alvarez held the hearing in Palm Beach County Juvenile Court to determine whether the girl, identified in court records as L.G., might be physically or emotionally harmed by an abortion.

But Alvarez said he will wait to rule on whether she can go ahead with the abortion until the 4th District Court of Appeal decides whether he has any authority in the case. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County believe that any court or state involvement violates L.G.’s constitutional right to choose.

The appeals court said Thursday it will move quickly on the case. The state has five days to submit its brief, and the ACLU and Legal Aid will have three days to respond. The girl is in her second trimester of pregnancy, her lawyers said, and an abortion will become more risky as time passes.

The ACLU believes this is another case of Florida leaders meddling in private lives and trampling the law to push a pro-life ideology. Critics of the state’s intervention compared the case to Gov. Jeb Bush’s attempts to block Terri Schiavo’s husband from removing her feeding tube and to his attempt in 2003 to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a severely disabled woman raped in state care.

But House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City, said the state has a responsibility to act as a good parent to L.G. and evaluate her before she makes an important decision.

“Frankly, I would err on the side of caution,” Bense said. “The government is already involved because of the nature of the girl’s case. And if I were the parent, I would want to make sure that the child received a proper evaluation.”

Despite his strong feelings against abortion, Bush stayed mostly silent on the case Thursday.

“This is a matter that’s being decided by the courts, and DCF is acting in the best interest of the child,” his spokesman, Jacob DiPietre, said.

DCF has declined comment on who made the decision to stop the abortion.

The Florida Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the state cannot create laws that require a teenage girl to get her parents’ permission before having an abortion. Because L.G.’s parents have lost the right to raise her, the state stands in that role, the ACLU said. They argue state officials have no more right to stop her than parents would.

In seeking this week to stop the girl from ending her pregnancy, DCF cited a state law that says the agency cannot consent to any abortion. Officials, without commenting on details of the case, said they are acting in the girl’s best interest.

L.G. has been in foster care for at least four years, since she was taken away from her parents for abuse or neglect. Caseworkers haven’t been able to find any families willing to adopt her, DCF attorney Jeffrey Gillen said Thursday in court.

L.G. has run away from several state homes and got pregnant during one of those periods 14 weeks ago, according to court testimony.

Two weeks ago, at a doctor’s appointment, she found out she was due to have a baby. She then told her caseworker with the Children’s Home Society, which runs some Palm Beach County foster care programs under contract with the state, that she wanted to end the pregnancy.

The caseworker drove her to the Presidential Women’s Center in West Palm Beach on April 22. There, she got an ultrasound and spoke with a health worker about her options.

The Women’s Center scheduled another appointment for Tuesday, when the girl would have a longer counseling session and then the abortion, Director Mona Reis said. “She was very vocal about wanting to end the pregnancy,” Reis said.

But the morning of that appointment, the Children’s Home Society called L.G. to tell her that the appointment was off. DCF went to court with an emergency motion asking Alvarez to stop the abortion.

Alvarez held a preliminary hearing the same day.

Legal Aid attorneys said the girl should have a right to end the pregnancy without delay.

The judge asked a court psychologist to evaluate the girl and for both sides to present evidence on whether she could be physically or emotionally harmed by ending the pregnancy or giving birth.

Lynn Hargrove, the court psychologist who met with L.G. under Alvarez’s order, determined she did not have any mental problems. The girl may have a mild mood disorder, she told the court Thursday, but nothing that would cloud her thinking.

“Her main concern seemed to be that she had to be at the evaluation,” Hargrove said. “She was frustrated at the delay.”

Hargrove said she reviewed research on the psychological effects of an abortion and found that teens have no greater risk of emotional problems after an abortion than adults. Women who have had abortions do not seem to have more trouble with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder than the general population, Hargrove said.

Ethelene Jones, a retired obstetrician/gynecologist who has held leadership roles with Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, testified that legal abortions are safer than pregnancy and childbirth.

At the girl’s age and stage of pregnancy, her chances of dying from an abortion are 1 in 34,000. The chances are 1 in 10,000 that she would die while carrying the baby to term, Jones said.

DCF called only one witness at the hearing. DCF attorney Gillen asked Francis X. Crosby, a child psychologist from Boca Raton, to talk about a disorder called post-abortion syndrome.

Though considered valid by some researchers and pro-life supporters, the syndrome is controversial. Crosby testified that it is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association or the American Medical Association.

“So far the research is still questionable,” Crosby said.

But some preliminary studies indicate that women with a history of psychiatric problems could be at higher risk for emotional harm after an abortion, Crosby said. Because the effects may not surface for months or years, women who undergo an abortion should get counseling long after they end their pregnancies, he said.

DCF’s attorneys tried to enter into evidence several former psychiatric evaluations they said showed L.G. had a history of psychological and behavioral problems, and said that might heighten her risk of trauma from an abortion. One report was nearly four years old.

Alvarez declined to accept those as evidence, upholding Legal Aid objections that they were outdated and irrelevant. “Children do tend to change between the ages of 10 and 13, don’t they?” he said.

At the end of Thursday’s hearing, Alvarez cleared attorneys, reporters and onlookers from the courtroom.

The 13-year-old was whisked inside through a side door to protect her privacy. She met alone with Alvarez and her court-appointed guardian.

Attorneys for the state and Legal Aid wrote their questions for the girl on notebook paper outside the courtroom. A bailiff then passed their handwritten notes to the judge.

They asked if she wanted a baby. L.G. said she does not, Alvarez said. She said she is only 13. She can’t get a job to support a child.

Advocates for children said the real issue raised by L.G.’s case is why DCF didn’t find adoptive parents who could keep the girl safe.

The question, said Florida’s Children First Executive Director Andrea Moore, “should be why did a 13-year-old languish in foster care and how is it she could find herself in this position.”

Karen Gievers, president of the Children’s Advocacy Foundation in Tallahassee, agreed. “They didn’t keep her safe. They didn’t get her a permanent family.”

DCF is “expressly forbidden” from getting involved in children’s medical decisions that are of an extraordinary nature, according to Gievers. “There are situations where government has no role. This is one of them.”

At the end of his hearing Thursday, Alvarez insisted the state should have done more to protect the 13-year-old before she got pregnant with a child of her own.

“Where are our priorities in life?” he asked.

Staff writers Alan Gomez and Larry Keller and special correspondent Dara Kam contributed to this story.

Copyright 2005 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
April 29, 2005 Friday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 1A
LENGTH: 1504 words