ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 8, 1996 TAG: 9603080092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: ROBERT LITTLE STAFF WRITER
note: lede
Despite the approval of large majorities in both houses of the General Assembly, a proposal to require parental notification when minors seek abortions perished Thursday in a tangle over procedural details.
The parental notification bill seemed a sure thing at noon, passing 25-15 in the Senate and fetching a kind word from the governor.
But by the end of the day, the bill had been thrashed not just once, but twice, through obscure procedural rulings that probably silenced the issue for good this year.
The perennial issue's wild ride through the Capitol produced its closest brush with success and its surest sign of defeat. Abortion opponents who had been slapping backs early in the day were left spinning by nightfall, bitter that they may have missed the best chance in a decade to put the law on the books.
Republican Gov. George Allen, who strongly supports parental notification, accused lawmakers of ``parliamentary chicanery,'' and said he now has little hope a bill can be passed in this session.
"You can do anything you want around here as long as somebody will let you get away with it," said a weary Sen. Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake, the assembly's chief strategist for anti-abortion legislation.
"Anybody who thinks this issue is going to go away is crazy," said Sen. Warren Barry, R-Fairfax County. "This issue is going to be out there as long as the emotion is out there."
The emotion was there. When the bill seemed headed for victory early in the day, senators spent almost two hours gloating and growling. The chamber's seven women all voted against the bill, at one point rising together on the floor to emphasize their opposition.
They argued that some parents would beat their daughters if told of their plans to have an abortion, and tried repeatedly to soften the bill's restrictions. They failed.
The bill the Senate approved mirrored one adopted in the House and was the strictest to clear both chambers in years. It required notifying a parent or guardian before anyone under 18 could have an abortion, making exceptions only for abused girls or those deemed particularly mature.
"I think it's a great day for the parents and the families of Virginia," declared Sen. Bill Bolling, R-Hanover County.
Responded Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax County, an opponent: "I think this is a profoundly sad day for the young women of Virginia."
But a procedural move that enabled the notification bill to clear the Senate became its undoing in the House of Delegates. House Speaker Thomas Moss, D-Norfolk, ruled that the House could not consider the measure because the Senate passed it as an amendment to an unrelated bill - a violation of the Virginia Constitution.
The ruling generated a swift objection from conservatives who cited earlier Moss decisions that seemed contradictory. They urged the House to overrule the speaker - who himself supports parental notification - in order to bring consistency to House rules. But such an extraordinary step was unthinkable to most delegates, even some fervent believers in parental notification. "Yes, the speaker departed from prior practice," said Del. Andy Guest, R-Front Royal. "But someone has to run the asylum."
Minutes later, a similar argument stymied the idea again, this time in the Senate Rules Committee. Earley hoped to send another version through the Senate on a more conventional course.
But that would mean bypassing the Senate's Education and Health Committee, the main reason parental notification isn't a law in Virginia despite approval from two-thirds of the state's legislators. The committee always considers the bill and votes to kill it. Rules members voted 8-7 to let the committee kill it again, arguing that to do otherwise would violate the established traditions of the legislature. ABORTION FACTS AND FIGURES
Number of abortions performed in Virginia annually: 30,000. Of those, 3,600 are performed on minors.
According to a study on abortions done by the Roanoke Medical Center for Women from 1990-1994, 60 percent of the minors informed at least one parent at the time of the procedure.
Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge has performed 327 abortions since it began offering the procedure last July. Fewer than 50 were minors, the agency said.
Sources: Planned Parenthood of the Blue Ridge; Roanoke Medical Center for Women
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP< State Sens. Jane Woods and Malfourd "Bo" Trumboby CNBtalk during the debate on the parental notification bill in Richmond
on Thursday. Trumbo played a key role. Story on C3. color KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996