Minor Rights Quotes

Children must be protected not because they are innocent but because they are powerless.

According to current Florida law you can get a gun, follow an unarmed minor, call the police, have them explicitly tell you to stop following [the minor] and choose to ignore that, keep following the minor, get into a confrontation with them, and if at any point during that process you get scared you can shoot the minor to death, and the state of Florida will say, 'Well, look: you did what you could.'

The next time a former child star is in the news, look at the age at which he or she started performing. Then imagine making a life-changing decision at that age. Chances are good he or she wasn't the one who made it.

In my opinion, you don't get to have privacy when you're only 16!

The Constitution protects individual decisions in matters of childbearing from unjustified intrusion by the state ….The right to privacy in connection with decisions affecting procreation extends to minors as well as adults.

The Child Custody Protection Act makes it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.

Why shouldn't 16-year-olds who pay taxes and drive not be allowed to vote?

A man may not legally marry the minor daughter of another without his consent, but he is legally free to seduce her if he can…It would seem that our present legislation was influenced more by respect for property, than by consideration for personal protection. Virtually it is effective only in regard to the well-to-do class in which property considerations enter largely into the question of marriage. In this class the daughters live at home, under the protection of parents and family connections, to mature age. The only danger to which they are actually exposed is to that of an imprudent marriage, and against that the law fully protects them.

In California, I guess you belong to the state; you don't even belong to your parents. It's an old Spanish law. It doesn't require your parents to swear out a complaint; anybody can.

In addition, the bill passed by the House requires a person performing an abortion on a minor from a different state to notify one parent in the home state.

There is something mindboggling about telling a girl that she’s old enough to be pregnant but not old enough to use birth control.