Thanks likewise, Mike. I certainly have no criticism of your approach
to parenting--and it's also obvious that parents on this list are lining
up on one side of this proposition and those of us who are not parents
on the other. That should perhaps dispose us all to caution.
There is one further, humanitarian concern that may be worth mentioning.
If a girl is afraid to tell her parents--a fear that in some cases may
be justified--and if she is either intimidated by the court system or
gets an unfriendly judge, she will end up with the back-alley
coat-hanger practitioner. That's a string of if's, but it doesn't seem
wildly unlikely. Another example of Milton Friedman's Invisible Foot
Principle, or the Law of Unintended Consequences.