Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 19, 1992 TAG: 9203190309
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Richmond bureau
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short
Planned Parenthood executives said Wednesday that they will give Gov. Douglas Wilder a scroll with nearly 10,000 signatures of Virginians opposed to a bill that would require that a parent be notified when an unmarried teen-age girl seeks an abortion.
But an anti-abortion lobbyist cited public opinion polls showing that large majorities of Virginians favor parental notification.
Grace Sparks, executive director of the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, said her group has spent two years acquiring signatures against the parental-notification bill, which passed the legislature this year. The names fill a scroll more than a quarter-mile long, she said.
"It's just bad social policy" to attempt to write into law measures forcing better family relationships, said the Rev. Robert E. Vaughn Jr. of the Providence-Woodland United Methodist Church in Suffolk. Vaughn was one of two Methodist ministers at a news conference called by opponents of the measure.
The news conference seemed designed in part to rebut arguments made Tuesday by anti-abortion advocates who contend that Wilder will be breaking a 1989 campaign promise if he fails to sign the bill.
by CNB