Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 14, 1992 TAG: 9202140249
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
SENATORS KILL ABORTION BILL
A group of senators used parliamentary warfare Thursday to wipe out legislation that would have required an unmarried teen-ager to notify her parents before getting an abortion.The Senate Committee on Education and Health voted 10-5 to shelve the bill, then called it back up and voted it down. The double whammy guarantees under parliamentary procedure that the measure cannot be resurrected this year.
"This is called `Welcome to the General Assembly,' " said a smiling Sen. Clarence Holland, D-Virginia Beach, who opposed the bill.
The only option left for supporters would be to have the measure yanked from the committee and put before the whole Senate.
"But we can't do it now, because we need 21 votes and we only have 19," said Sen. Charles Colgan, D-Manassas. He added that he was looking for a piece of legislation the issue could be grafted onto, but that prospects were grim.
Colgan sponsored a parental-notification bill that died in the Senate committee last week. Thursday's measure came from Del. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Martinsville, and already had won approval from the House.
Proponents, who have labored to get the bill through the assembly since 1986, say they are asking that parents be given the same role in an abortion that they have in approving report cards or minor surgery.
Twenty-seven states require two parents to be notified or even to give consent, Reynolds told the committee; his bill required only one parent to be involved, and only to be notified.
Reynolds said that when he was young and told his parents about troubling things, "I found reconciliation and help in dealing with the issues I'm talking about."
Committee Chairman Elliot Schewel, D-Lynchburg, responded: "You were very fortunate indeed that you lived in a functional family. Of course, most young people do, but there are many who do not."
Schewel and other opponents worried that forcing a girl to reveal something so delicate could lead to abuse at the hands of an irate parent.
By beating back the bill - which had gained steam this year as the Senate swelled with new, conservative Republicans - the committee probably doomed it for three years. That's how long until the next senatorial elections and the next real chance for turnover on the committee.
"We are disappointed. We had hoped the committee would have shown that it trusted Virginia's parents and wanted to protect teen-age girls," said Fiona Givens, spokeswoman for the Virginia Society for Human Life.
If the public sees the Senate panel continue to scuttle the legislation, Givens said, "then I think there will be a real effort to change the face of the committee."
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on February 17, 1992.
A story in Friday's Virginia section implied that the issue of requiring an unmarried teen-ager to notify her parents before getting an abortion was dead for this General Assembly session. A Senate committee Thursday killed a bill passed by the House, but the proposal could resurface as an amendment to another piece of legislation.
Memo: CORRECTION