A teenage high school girl in Texas was benched by the coach of her volleyball team because she’s pregnant, even though she presented a doctor’s note that stated she was ready to play.
On the one hand, I understand her and her parent’s anger, and of course the inevitable law suit. But here’s the thing: I’m reminded of the fireman who took his young son on a joyride on the fire truck after he’d gotten permission from his superior to do so. And the son fell off and injured himself and the guy sued the fire department contending they shouldn’t have let him do it in the first place. Which, in fact, they shouldn’t have, but that’s not the point. The point is that a lot of people have trouble with the concept of personal responsibility. Which is a long-winded way of saying that if a pregnant girl is allowed to participate in a high speed, contact sport, Title IX notwithstanding, and she sustains an injury that causes her to miscarry…can’t you just see the parents turning around and suing the school, contending that they shouldn’t have allowed her to participate in a high-risk sport? For that matter, it’s entirely possible that the school’s insurance carrier would refuse to provide insurance to cover a pregnant athlete. Some sports, it’s not an issue: Swimming, for instance. But volleyball, soccer, La Crosse?
How to solve this problem? Four words:
Remember, kids: Use condoms!
PAD
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She must *really* like volleyball.
Of course the parents will sue. It’s a given. I just hope a judge with a keen sense of judgement will look at them and say, “Are you nuts?!?!?” And then dismiss the case.
Would that more judges responded to more cases that way.
And don’t use a condom past the expiration date. But that’s just condom sense, right?
As idiosyncratic as the judges in Texas can be, they’re pretty dámņ good about calling BS when they see it.
While he shouldn’t outed her condition, I don’t feel the school should have allowed her to play. This was a lawsuit waiting to happen. A great case you can refer to is Driever v. Spackenkill Union Free School District, where a cheerleader, performing a dangerous stunt, was injured and sued the School District, saying the school district was negligent in that it did not properly supervise such dangerous activities. The kicker: The cheerleader’s coach testified, that she had prohibited the stunt,and the girl had done it anyway!!! The school wasn’t able to dismiss the case because they are loco parentis. So yeah, I think the school was covering their butts here.
Although this is a clearly a case of volleyball, can you imagine this pregnant girl going against a team or an opponent with a ‘win at all costs even if it means ponytail pulling’ attitude like that soccer player that was featured on the news a few weeks back?
PAD is right she should not be playing period. Not even if she has a doctor’s excuse or signed a waiver.
She shouldn’t be playing because she isn’t having a period.
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And that soccer girl is bìŧçhìņ’ hot! I’d date her if I was 20.
I dunno. Many young girls lose their babies prematurely WITHOUT doing strenuous physical activities. The minute I hear ‘pregnant’ I’m hoping everything goes alright, because even in this day and age a LOT of things can go south FAST.
Soccer girl being hot? To each, his own. I like ’em more like Salma Hayek or Shakira “hips don’t lie” – just don’t tell her that! LOL!
Peter David: Some sports, it’s not an issue: Swimming, for instance…..How to solve this problem? Use condoms!
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Luigi Novi: Yeah, really. It doubles as a swim cap. 🙂
This is a situation where the coach is dámņëd whatever he does. He allows the girl to play and she gets hurt, she sues for not being protected from herself. I can hear her lawyers arguing, “The fact she was pregnant to begin with already showed she wasn’t capable of making decisions for herself.”
However, by not allowing her to play, he’s risking the wrath of the ACLU. It’s the modern equivalent of dámņáŧìøņ: sued if you do, sued if you don’t.
You left out the third option…sue just in case.
How about just do the whole abstinence thing and invest in Playboys, or is that not just an option anymore? I hate to sound stodgy, but for me personally this is the cap on a “kids-having-kids” kind of week. Don’t they realize the whole consequences of their actions?
Of course not. When do kids ever understand the whole consequences?
There was an episode of Sliders some years back, where the sliders landed in a parallel dimension where one to sign a release for just about everything. If you wanted to buy a hamburger for example, you had to have a note from your doctor confirming that your cholesterol was a certain level, and so forth. At the time, it seemed like an absolutely ridiculous bit of social commentary, but ‘Lawyer World’ seems to grow ever closer to reality.
There was also an episode of Sliders where one world was a near-utopia, largely because birth control was incredibly available — I think they even had birth control in the soft drinks — and with the population under control poverty was all but eliminated.
As for this case, I think the school definitely had the right idea. If the student *had* played and anything bad happened to the baby (even if it wasn’t directly provable — “all my problems now happened because the school let me play volleyball months ago”) it was easily a lawsuit waiting to happen.
We’re about to see that Sliders episode put to the test. Japan’s population is heading for free fall. Possiblythe first time a powerful, successful, rich economy has chosen demographic reduction on that scale. I don’t know if it will be the utopia some imagine.
Japan’s problem is easily fixed if they’d just allow permanent immigration. As long as some countries are producing far more babies than they need, no other countries should have to worry about losing population.
But Japan seems to be the one major country that refuses to accept the idea of a multi-ethnic society, even on a very limited scale.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of damages does one hang on “missed a volleyball game”? Like six bucks for gas?
There’s a test somewhere which is pretty reasonable for these things, and that’s “how much would someone have to pay you to voluntarily undergo this trauma”? I’m thinking an “I’m sorry” tenner about covers this.
In a case like this, one wouldn’t sue for damages, but for the court to force the school to allow the girl to play.
Which no court in its right mind would grant.
andy said ” There’s a test somewhere which is pretty reasonable for these things, and that’s “how much would someone have to pay you to voluntarily undergo this trauma”? I’m thinking an “I’m sorry” tenner about covers this.”
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Not necessarily. If, say, the girl was a senior an d a star player vying for a scarce v-ball scholarship And, by being prevented from playing, she is unable to wind that scholarship. She could lose out on college, a better carerr, and a million over a lifetime of working the minium wage jobs that she can only get w/o her college degree.
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Of course, this would all be unprovable. there is not way she could show that she would havbe been guaranteed any such scholarship. But even an average lawyer can spin lots of what ifs.
You know, I think the girl forfeited her rights to a normal childhood when she chose to behave like an adult and have sex, unprotected or not. Sex is the best sport in the world, but only on the right playing field with the proper admission fee to the event. I think a wedding ceremony with lots of witnesses and a couple of rings is a suitable admission price, but that’s because I’m a Christian.
Taking responsibility for one’s actions is an important lesson that few kids are learning these days. I see it all the time as a substitute teacher for a Title I middle school in East TN. Just this week, I was working in a class with a pregnant 8th grader. She said she was raped, but she had a grin on her face like it was the best thing in the world… and she didn’t mind that the entire class/team/school knew of her condition.
Moments like those make me want to reach even deeper into my heart for the strength to teach/stress sexual and personal responsibility to adolescents and children–to build their character for the big, scary world out there. Real life throws so many things at us.
To Chris G,
Abstinence sounds cool, but it is very difficult.
1) schools and people who preach abstienence will also be against sex education (because they feel it leads to sex). So kids arent being given the whole picture and when you arent given all the information, then you make mistakes.
2) god or evolution created our bodies to start going through puberity at such an early age. We are only on this planet for 12 years (many of which are early development) and then suddenly our bodies start screaming at us to procreate. Just saying “no” is hard when god or evolution has created this biological need (and made it feel really awesome).
3) Religion (catholic at least) tells you that mášŧûrbáŧìņg is wrong and that using protection is wrong and that one needs to have as many children as possible (although you are supposed to wait till marriage).
So with all these mixed messages, lack of information and your body screaming in your brain that you need to get “your groove on”. I think its not as simple as you think.
I think religious people should pray hard to god to perhaps start puberity a little later in life (around 22) that way we can become fully educated and informated adults and then our balls can drop after college.
For the non-religious, we have to work with our best companies (Veridian Dynamics) to create a new form of human.
1 in 4.
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That’s what they say is the spontaneous miscarriage rate.
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If they let her play, I could easily see his girl having a miscarriage from events totally unrelated to playing volleyball — and a lawsuit would follow and volleyball would take the blame. It woudl be hard to prove that a miscarriage was spontaneous and not due to strenous sport activity. Not letting her play is the way to go. It’s only 9 months – a little delayed gratification is good for a person. And this is lesson this particular child does not seem to have learned very well.
This sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy line. “If you’re mad that your pregnant daughter isn’t allowed to play school volleyball, you might be a redneck.”
It’s just weird that the baby’s grandparents get to raise a fuss about a school situation before the kid is even born. I’ve seen a lot of mad parents because their kid was benched during a game, but this is definitely a new one.
This reminds me of the scene in “Willy Wonka” where the spoiled girl wants the Golden Goose and the father asks to buy it and Willy says no and then he says, “Really, how much?” and Willy says “She can’t have it”. The look on not only the girl’s face of disbelief that she was being told no but that of her father having a look of disbelief that his child she ever be denied anything is pricely and resonates even more today I think.
So many parents want to seek their kids’ approval, rather than the other way around, and think they are doing them a favor by giving their kids what they want, when they want and how much they want -when the opposite is in fact the case. These kids don’t know how to act when someone – a teacher, a boss – finally tells them no. Worse, instead of reinforcing such a life lesson, too many parents I’ve encountered will tell the child they have done nothing wrong and how bad the boss, teacher, significant other, is.
The Willy Wonka character was Veruca Salt.
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Not to be confused with the band the stole her name.
I always thought the band took the name as an homage to the character?
IMO, abstinence is the best form of birth control.
dave: “I always thought the band took the name as an homage to the character?”
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Me: I was being facetious
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dave: “IMO, abstinence is the best form of birth control.”
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Me: I tend to agree. the best birth control is the girl saying, “Fool, don’t *even* be thinking that you’re getting any.”
Today (Wednesday) they are having an “news story” about this on ESPN in their “Outside the Line” program. They talk to the school and the Doctors.
Too bad that girl doesn’t go to my old high school. She could still participate in P.E., she’d just have to transfer to one of the non-sports we were allowed to take for P.E. like Bocce Ball (no joke!). I don’t believe throwing a croquet ball towards a golf ball induces miscarriage.
Smart move on the school’s part.
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I’m totally with the school on this one. If anything were to happen to her, even if it’s not even related to her sport of choice, that causes her a to have miscarriage the family will have that school in court over it in a heartbeat.
You know what, though, Jerry? That’d be a heck of a scam. Get an unscrupulous doc, a willing kid(or her family) and a nice expensive private school. Between the people who’d want the name of the school far awat from any scandal and the bad guys could turn a nice bit of coin.
Crap, I just wrote a Law & Order episode, didn’t I?
Law & Order will be taking their mid season break soon, won’t they? 😀
“Personal responsibility”? Who needs that when they can hire a lawyer to pin it on someone else?
Here is Ireland two years ago a 10 year old girl tripped and fell in a playground, and later needed a knee operation. Though this was a complete accident the mother sued the school. The judge recognised the mothers frustration but had to rule against her or kids around the country would not be able to play on a playground again.
I like George Carlin’s take on it
“The parents sue the schools so much all the kids will be already to do soon is just stand around. Then while a kid is doing that he trips, falls, grazed his knee, the parents sue the school and goodbye standing around”.
“Personal responsibility”? But I thought the courts were supposed to protect us from ourselves!
La Crosse?
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A town in Wisconsin is a full contact sport? The sport name is ‘lacrosse’. No space or extra capital letter. 😉
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Yes, I’m back from a vacation (to Disney World & Disney Eastern Caribbean cruise) and still the same ol’ wáņkër.
Interestingly, my daughter (HS Sophomore) was just today complaining about “condom day” (her phrase) in Health class. The kids learned how to read the information on the condom packages and what the information meant. They did not learn how condoms are used. They were not permitted to open the packages.
She followed this with stories about the day they role played refusal skills and the teacher warned the students that they might end up paired with someone of the same sex and to “just pretend one of you is the opposite sex”.
This class frustrates her to no end. She tried to get out of it because she had taken a MUCH more comprehensive sex and relationships class through her church when she was in Junior High but no go – state requirement.
I told her from the start that she has my support if she wants to mess with the teacher (not a bad person, but rigid and cowardly) but daughter, unfortunately, doesn’t really like to stand out.