THE COURT IN FLORIDA has ruled that L.G., the 13-year-old girl who is pregnant and wants an abortion, is competent to choose one and has the legal right to choose one. Gov. Jeb Bush declined to push the matter any further, although he could not resist saying it was a "tragedy" that the "baby would be lost" and that "there was no good news in this at all." Presumably then if Judge Alvarez had ruled that L.G. could not have the abortion, Gov. Bush would not have felt it was a tragedy that a 13-year-old girl was being forced to go through pregnancy and childbirth.

Well, I have a newsflash for Jeb. It's a tragedy for this girl that she was either raped or sexually exploited by an older man and that she had to go through the trauma of discovering she was pregnant at the age of 13. It is NOT a tragedy that the judge decided in favor of L.G.'s constitutional rights and ruled that she is mature enough to choose an abortion. L.G. should never have had to experience pregnancy at all at her age; and it's not a tragedy that the fetus will not develop into a baby and be born, any more than it would have been a tragedy if that fetus had never been conceived.

But the award for Most Repulsive Comment in this entire sad affair goes to the Department of Children & Families. In a statement justifying its attempt to block L.G. from having an abortion, the DCF said: "The Department of Children & Families has the custodial responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the child, as state law requires."

Perhaps Florida's Department of Children & Families can explain how having a baby at the age of 13 is "in the best interest of the child." On the other hand, never mind. Nothing the DCF could say would explain that to my satisfaction.