Assent, Dissent on Parental Consent Law

Regarding Robin Abcarian’s column on the California Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding the law requiring minors to obtain parental consent prior to proceeding with an abortion (“How a Law That Sounds OK on Paper Killed a Girl,” April 14).

Abcarian’s contention that a similar law in Indiana “killed” a girl who sought an illegal abortion is invalid on its face. She completely ignores the guilt of the person who performed the illegal abortion that resulted in the lethal infection that tragically ended the young girl’s life.

The point of the law is not to force communication. The minor’s inability to make informed and mature decisions is the concern here and the law attempts to bring the maturity of the parent into the decision, or, if that is not possible, the maturity of the judge.

Abcarian asks, “Why should the decision about a minor’s ability to give informed consent be wrenched from physicians and handed to judges?” It’s simple, the physician has a financial interest in the decision to proceed with the abortion.

Abcarian then goes on to share with us that in 1972, she had an abortion. She informs us that in the same year she had become student body president, editor of the yearbook, and a year later graduated with straight A’s and went off to college. We are to believe that none of this could have been accomplished had she decided to keep her baby. Maybe society should be grateful for the decision she made that allowed her to become the contributing member of society she is today. However the child whose life was terminated will never be able to become student body president, editor of the yearbook or pursue a college education and that loss is immeasurable.

JOSE NIETO

Arcadia

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Robin Abcarian’s column certainly points out that when it comes to legislating human behavior our laws are often off the mark. And this tell-your-parents law is far, far off the mark. There is no doubt that if this law is enforced it will add to the increasing number of teenage suicides, an alarming phenomenon that is already a product of the many stresses of living in today’s society.

Justice Stanley Mosk and the other judges who voted for this parental consent law should come down from out of the thin air of their ivory tower and--as they say these days--get real. No amount of legislation is going to force every girl to shame herself in front of her parents. And in the past years many young girls have committed suicide over problems far more minor than getting pregnant.

Good for Robin, who cited her own experience, a very private and painful one, I’m sure. In doing so, she laid bare the true reality of what most young girls in that predicament actually think.

It’s a bad law that won’t work.

JAMES R. GALLAGHER

Huntington Beach

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Abcarian blames laws and legislators for the unfortunate death of a 17-year-old pregnant minor in 1988. Perhaps it is time for her and all abortion rights advocates to stop blaming laws and lay the blame at the foot of the person who botched the abortion. Legal as well as illegal abortions have resulted in serious infections, bleeding and deaths of women.

Parental consent laws as a whole do protect minors because only a parent has his or her child’s best interest at heart.

LINDA DAVILA

Cerritos