Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 20, 1992 TAG: 9201200067
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COVINGTON LENGTH: Long
PARENTAL NOTICE PUSHED
Eileen Roberts is fed up with being shut out."I'm not the bad guy. I'm a mother who knows best," she told a packed house at First Christian Church at the conclusion of her address to the annual "Pro-Life March and Rally" here Sunday.
Roberts is president and founder of Mothers Against Minors' Abortions, a national organization based in Fredericksburg. As such, she frequently speaks out on her experience helping her 14-year-old daughter cope with the depression that followed an abortion that she didn't have to consult her parents to get.
Her daughter spent seven weeks in a psychiatric hospital, Roberts said, had to have dilation and curettage a few weeks later to "heal the damage done by the abortion" and suffered pelvic inflammatory disease a year later.
She and her husband had to consent to each of the later medical treatments, Roberts said, and bear responsibility for their financial and emotional costs.
"Parents know their children like no one else does," Roberts said, and should have to be consulted at the very least to get accurate medical histories of their children, who are unlikely to be familiar with them.
Roberts also raised the now-familiar issues of parental notification requirements for a child to take an aspirin at school or to receive a driver's license.
Roberts contended that induced abortions are the most commonly performed medical procedures among teen-agers but that abortion clinics are among the "most under-regulated and under-investigated" of medical facilities.
Those on both sides of the abortion issue - including some from the Alleghany Highlands - will lobby in Richmond today and Tuesday and in Washington on Wednesday, the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision 19 years ago that legalized abortion nationwide.
State legislation to require notification of parents before an abortion can be performed on a minor will be introduced in the Virginia House and Senate by Tuesday, according to a press release from the Virginia Society for Human Life.
Two versions of the bill will be entered, each allowing a different option around the requirement in cases where the pregnant minor fears for her personal safety if her parents are notified or where her parents cannot be found to give their permission. One version would allow the girl to petition a judge for permission to have an abortion; the other would require the permission of only one parent, not both.
Similar legislation has been defeated several times in recent years, but spokesmen on both sides of the issue have predicted the measure may have its best chance ever for passage this year, following the last legislative elections.
"I don't like to get too optimistic," Roberts said. "I'm concerned because the opposition will be out in full force and we still need to continue our efforts."
Even if a parental notification bill is passed, its advocates have worried that Gov. Douglas Wilder would veto it. Roberts said Wilder's director of constituent affairs, William Browning, told her Friday that "Governor Wilder would consider a parental notification bill only if the safety of the teen was ensured."
Even if such a bill did not include specific provisions for judicial or other bypass, Roberts said, state law already requires that physicians notify authorities if they suspect abuse or neglect of a minor patient. She said she thinks that law provides the insurance the governor calls for.
About 150 people turned out for Sunday's rally, which was moved quickly from the courthouse steps to First Christian Church in a three-block march.
A children's choir and nationally known Christian recording artist Jay Banks performed for the crowd before Roberts' speech. Banks wrote both pop and gospel music for other performers before undertaking his solo performing career.
The event also included an "educational fair and fellowship hour" after the speeches.
Anti-abortion rights activist Ron Hedlund distributed a press release reporting a drop of almost 10 percent in the number of abortions being performed at the Roanoke Medical Center for women. The total fell to 1,883 in 1991 from 2,074 in 1990.
While expressing pleasure at the decline, the release blasted Planned Parenthood for condoning abortions and charged that the organization, which does not perform abortions in Virginia, was considering doing so.
David Nova, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge, said in a telephone interview Sunday that his agency and the women's clinic both were pleased with the decline in the number of abortions last year.
Nova said clinic officials speculated that increased use of condoms in response to fears of contracting AIDS and the more widespread use of the Norplant contraceptive may have affected the demand for abortions.
"We know it was not the protesters in front of the clinics" in the Roanoke Valley or in Charlottesville, he said. No scheduled abortions were canceled because of the protests, he said.
Though it may be some time before the figures on last year's abortions can be fully analyzed, if it turns out that education and more effective contraceptive usage contributed to the decline, that would be "welcome news" for Planned Parenthood.
"As far as we are concerned, what Planned Parenthood has been working for is a decrease in unintended pregnancies" and a consequent decrease in the demand for abortions.
Nova said Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge is not making any plans to offer abortion services and he knows of no other chapters in the state that are.
However, "we would seriously consider it if the service were not readily available from other agencies in Southwest Virginia," given the agency's sense of obligation to make sure that the full range of legal reproductive health services is available in its service area, he said.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY