ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 30, 1997 TAG: 9701300053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO GENERAL ASSEMBLY
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
Conservative legislators won the anti-abortion victory they have been seeking for 18 years Wednesday, clearing the way for a new state law that would make minors tell their parents before getting an abortion.
With a 10-5 vote, the Senate Courts of Justice Committee sent the parental notification bill to the full Senate, which could debate it this week. (Four Western Virginia senators sit on the panel: Jack Reasor, D-Bluefield; Roscoe Reynolds, D-Henry County, and Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, voted in favor of the bill; John Edwards, D-Roanoke, voted against it.)
For any other legislation, committee votes are simply one event in the long process of turning bills into laws.
But the parental notification measure has cleared every other step in the legislative process before, so Wednesday's vote in a Senate committee - traditionally a burying ground of parental notification bills - was considered a significant victory for anti-abortion forces that have sought the law since 1979.
"We've taken one step forward in our effort to strengthen families and protect children," said Sen. Mark Earley, the Chesapeake Republican sponsoring the bill.
The parental notification bill still faces a long journey into the lawbooks. It will be debated on the Senate floor, then face committee and floor votes in the House of Delegates if it succeeds.
However, a majority in both the House and Senate is on record in favor of a parental notification bill, and abortion rights advocates are so certain of its passage they already have begun crafting a legal challenge to it.
Only one thing changed this year, and it is expected to be all the measure needs: Earley wrote the bill as an amendment to juvenile laws, so its first vote came before the friendlier Courts of Justice Committee, not the Education and Health Committee, which routinely has killed the bill in the past.
Unlike the emotional deadlock of past abortion-related debates, Wednesday's hearing was brief and decisive. Each side spoke for 10 minutes, an arrangement made in advance because of the measure's long history and certain fate.
Karen Raschke, the lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, rolled a 5-foot petition to the floor, saying it included opponents' signatures gathered in just three days. She and other opponents argued that the bill would endanger girls in broken homes and force others to seek illegal abortions or go to other states.
The measure would prohibit doctors from performing abortions on anyone younger than 18 unless her parents are notified, unless a judge rules otherwise.
Raschke suggested that if the General Assembly wants to protect families, members ought to pass a law requiring teens to tell their parents when they are having sex. "Why are we waiting until they are pregnant?" she asked.
Only two women sit on the 15-member committee, and both voted against the bill. Three Democrats and all seven Republicans on the committee voted for the bill.
Earley is expected to mount another anti-abortion battle today when his bill to ban certain late-term abortions is heard before a Senate panel. That bill's prospects are not considered as bright, largely because it is before the Education and Health Committee - which killed parental notification in the past.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Planned Parenthood lobbyist Karen Raschke unfolds aby CNBlist of the names of petitioners who oppose a parental notification
bill during a Senate panel hearing Wednesday. color.