THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 8, 1996 TAG: 9603080615
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
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 effectively 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 each other on the back 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 F. Allen, who strongly supports parental notification, accused lawmakers of ``parliamentary chicanery,'' and said he now has little hope that a notification 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 L. 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 E. Barry, R-Fairfax. ``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 young women if told of their daughters' plans to have an abortion, and they tried repeatedly to soften the bill's restrictions. They failed.
The bill the Senate approved mirrored one that had been adopted in the House on Feb. 13. It 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 women or those deemed particularly mature.
``I think it's a great day for the parents and the families of Virginia,'' declared Sen. William T. Bolling, R-Hanover.
Responded Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, 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 W. Moss Jr., D-Norfolk, ruled 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. Raymond ``Andy'' Guest, R-Front Royal. ``But someone has to run the asylum.''
Minutes later, parental notification came up yet again - this time, in the Senate Rules Committee. There, Earley, a committee member, was hoping to send another version of the bill through the Senate on a more conventional course.
But that would mean bypassing the Senate's Education and Health Committee, which has killed parental notification bills in past sessions. Rules members voted 8-7 to let the committee kill it again, arguing that to do otherwise would violate the established traditions of the Assembly. ILLUSTRATION: BILL TIERNAN Color photos/The Virginian-Pilot
State Sen. Mark L. Earley, R-Chesapeake attached the bill to other
legislation. On the Senate floor, the chamber's seven women -
including Mary Margaret Whipple of Arlington, left, and Patricia S.
Ticer of Alexandria - stood in opposition to the bill.
Graphic
THE BILL
THE BATTLE
THE DEFEAT
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY ABORTIONS PARENTAL NOTICE by CNB