Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 4, 1994 TAG: 9404080006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHRYN B. HAYNIE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The passage of this parental notification bill marks a major victory for anti-abortion groups and substantially weakens the fabric of Virginia's reproductive-health laws.
Make no mistake about it. This legislation is not about family communication or ensuring that young women have good counsel as they wrestle with an important life decision. The proponents of this legislation have only one motive: to create barriers to access to abortion. Having failed over the years to outlaw abortion outright, they have resorted to an incremental strategy to create barriers to access to abortion. First the poor (no government funding for abortion), next the young (parental notification/consent), then the rest (24-hour mandatory waits and abortion counseling under the guise of "informed consent" language, etc.).
In state after state, the pattern is repeated. Once a legislature has compromised its pro-choice laws once, it becomes easier to take the next step. Fiona Givens of the Virginia Society for Human Life was quoted in the Richmond Times-Dispatch as stating that passage of the notification bill would open the way for other efforts to regulate abortion next year.
But what is even more troubling to those of us who work with teens and their families around pregnancy-related issues is the likely effect of passage of this legislation. More second trimester abortions, more teens driving long distances to North Carolina, the District of Columbia or New York to avoid disclosure of their pregnancy to their parents, more unwanted births, more teens without early prenatal care, more babies with health problems. The list goes on and on. For these reasons, most major health and medical organizations in the United States oppose this legislation. It endangers the lives of teens.
It is ironic that if this legislation becomes law, a teen-age girl can decide to continue her pregnancy to term, relinquish her baby for adoption, consent to Caesarean section, amniocentesis and a long list of other medical procedures without her parents being notified. In short, the law will say she is mature enough to make a decision on her own to become a parent, but not mature enough to decide she is not ready to become a parent.
What the legislation will not do is improve family communications. The idea is noble. No one can argue with the idea of parents supporting their teens through difficult times. In fact, we know that most young people do involve at least one significant family member in their decision. But for young people from troubled families, the idea of notification can be terrifying. As terrifying is the idea of going before a judge to ask permission to have an abortion. So, teens take matters into their own hands.
Anti-choice groups try to portray those of us who oppose this legislation as anti-family, pro-abortion radicals. The reality is that we are parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers of young people. We work hard to encourage family communications, to reduce unwanted pregnancy and to preserve the freedom of everyone to have access to the full range of choices in pregnancy decisions.
We love our children too much to support a law that will place young lives in jeopardy. We believe that where parents have instilled a sense of trust, love and support in their families, young people will voluntarily involve them in their decisions. We know that family communication cannot be legislated.
Gov. Allen will decide within the next few days whether to sign a bill that was amended to allow a teen to notify another adult family member instead of a parent and which applies the law only to teens under the age of 17. He is under tremendous pressure from anti-abortion groups to strike the amendments and return the bill to its most punitive form. He can also veto the bill, which would leave Virginia's current law intact. His actions on this bill will tell the true story of his concern for Virginia's families.
Kathryn B. Haynie is executive director of Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge.
by CNB