THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702090287
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Elizabeth Simpson
LENGTH: 72 lines
THE NEVER-ENDING BATTLE over abortion hits us at every level.
There are clinic bombings in cities across the country, marches before court houses, impassioned speeches in legislative chambers.
But the place where the issue is most important - the home - is usually where the topic is least likely to be brought up.
The mere mention of the word ``abortion'' provokes enough emotion to cloud every other issue in sight.
It would be easy to look at a Virginia bill to require parents be notified of their teen-agers' abortions in terms of whether you are for or against a woman's right to an abortion.
That's not really what this bill is about, at least in my mind. This bill, after all, wouldn't outlaw abortions.
Rather, at issue is the delicate relationship between a parent and a child.
And that's tough to legislate.
We all know this, and yet the effort to legislate the matters of the home and heart is reaching a fevered pitch in society today.
Whatever happened to children confiding in the people who brought them into the world? To mothers and fathers taking on the hard responsibility of doing the right thing for their children? Of knowing, intuitively, when something is up with your own kid?
Instead, we hear stories of teen-agers who have babies without their parents even knowing they were pregnant. Parents who can't tell a police officer the color of their child's eyes, much less their birthdate, when filing a runaway report. Teens who learn about sex from locker-room chatter and sitcom scenarios.
And where abortion is concerned, one study shows that most girls do tell their mothers before having an abortion, but most mothers decide not to tell their husbands.
How's that for family communication?
So what can be done?
I know: Let's pass a law!
We look to the government for everything from telling us whether our children should watch Beavis and Butt-head to pinpointing the moment a fetus becomes a child.
We want TV ratings and V-chips so we won't have to sit down and screen the shows while our kids watch them or, horror of horrors, take the drastic step of turning the TV dial to the ``off'' position.
We want parental-rights amendments to make sure the world knows that we, the parents, have the authority to direct our children's upbringing. And we want a law that requires we be informed when our teen-agers step into an abortion clinic.
While all of these measures may appear to be good on their faces - V monitoring, parental authority and family communication - I have a problem with laws that try to force a relationship that ought to be there anyway.
They are quick-fix attempts to problems that have deeper roots. The government is a lousy substitute, after all, for a home where children feel they can confide in their parents. An amendment is nothing but a crutch to make up for a place where sexuality is openly discussed. A law is a poor stand-in for parents teaching values early and often.
Maybe when my own children reach their teen years I will be begging for these types of measures. I'm sure there are parents of teens out there who will say, ``Just wait until your children turn 16, and you'll see it's not so easy.''
But that's just it. Bringing up children is not so easy as passing a law, either. The real work that needs to be done is not in the General Assembly or the White House.
It's in the home. MEMO: If you have comments or ideas you'd like to pass along, please
call Infoline at 640-5555, and press 4332.
KEYWORDS: ABORTION