Girl's abortion was legal; the reason for it wasn't

Now that a judge has settled the question of whether a 13-year-old can consent to an abortion, the focus is shifting to another question: Can a 13-year-old consent to sex? Because Florida law says the answer is no, police correctly are trying to find the male who impregnated the teen identified as L.G.

It is unknown where L.G. got pregnant. In February, she ran away from a St. Petersburg group home, and later found out she was pregnant. She told her birth mother, who lost her parental rights in 2001, that she was living near the state home with a 28- or 30-year-old man.

The Florida Department of Children and Families went to court to block L.G. from having an abortion, but little attention was paid to the crime that had occurred. Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez ruled last week that the state could not prevent L.G. from ending her pregnancy. He also ensured that DNA from the aborted fetus would be preserved for use in a criminal investigation. Regardless of whether L.G. identifies the male who got her pregnant -- she told Judge Alvarez simply "a boy" -- police now have strong evidence to pursue sexual battery charges.

Although the legal age of consent is 18, prosecutors are less apt to charge teens who have sex with other teens of the same age or when the age difference is slight. But a law targets the underreported crime of grown men having sex with girls. The number of girls impregnated by adult men was so high in 1996 -- 77 percent of births among girls 16 to 18, and 51 percent of births to girls 15 or younger -- that the Legislature passed the "MAMA Bill," for Make Adult Males Accountable. The law requires prosecution of men 20 or older who impregnate girls younger than 16. It also requires anyone who knows that a child becsme pregnant by an adult to report it to law enforcement.

Although health departments regularly file reports of teen pregnancies to state attorney's offices -- 6,940 unwed teens 17 or younger gave birth in 2003 -- the law rarely results in a criminal charge, primarily because the victims are afraid or otherwise unwilling to identify the predator. At the very least, the evidence in L.G.'s case could be compared to samples in a database of criminals in jail or formerly jailed. The man more than twice L.G.'s age who reportedly sheltered her should be a primary suspect.

Police should do all they can to find the man who preyed upon L.G., and prosecutors should seek the strongest charge and penalty possible. Without the sex, there would have been no abortion debate.