Abortion Consent Bill Passes in House

The House approved abortion legislation Wednesday that would make it a crime for an adult to skirt a state’s parental consent laws.

Under the bill, passed 270 to 159, an adult could be held criminally liable for bringing a minor to another state for an abortion if the procedure there is subject to less stringent parental consent laws than in the child’s own state.

The vote puts abortion back on the national political agenda with legislation that appears to have support from parents across the political spectrum. In one survey cited frequently by the bill’s backers, 85% of voters said they would support legislation such as that passed Wednesday.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), principal sponsor of the measure, hailed it as “pro-family, common-sense legislation” that “will give back to parents the right to parent.”

But opponents assailed it as an assault on young women’s access to abortion and said it would abandon teens who cannot turn to their parents for help in ending unwanted pregnancies.

Adults convicted under the law could be sentenced to as much as a year in jail and a fine of $100,000. The measure also would allow a child’s parent to sue the convicted adult in civil court.

The House passed the same measure last year by a slightly wider margin, although without enough votes to overturn a threatened White House veto. The measure later died in the Senate. This year’s version also faces tough sledding in the Senate, where it has majority support but appears to fall short of the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles.

Forty-two states have enacted laws that require the notification and, in some cases, consent of one or both parents before a minor may get an abortion. In California, a 1987 law established a parental consent requirement, but the state Supreme Court struck it down 10 years later, saying it violated privacy rights.

But abortion clinics in the other states often advertise for potential young customers who might wish to avoid their state’s parent-notification or consent laws. And girls under 18 frequently rely on boyfriends, many of them older and possibly subject to statutory rape laws, to reach these clinics.

Anti-abortion forces are counting on that practice to make parents, even those who favor abortion rights, deeply uneasy. In debate Wednesday, several lawmakers cited the Pennsylvania case of a 13-year-old girl whose effort to end a pregnancy led to her death from complications of an abortion. Impregnated by an 18-year-old, the girl turned to the young man’s mother for transportation to an abortion clinic in New York, where parental notification laws did not exist. The girl’s parents, who had not known of their daughter’s pregnancy, later testified on behalf of the House measure.

“Right now, a parent in North Carolina must grant permission before a nurse at school can give a child an aspirin,” said Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.). “But a stranger can take a child across state lines for an abortion. Give me a break! This is nonsense, and it has to stop.”

The bill’s authors fought back an attempt by abortion rights advocates to amend the measure to exempt a religious or psychological counselor or a close family relative from criminal or civil liability.

“I hope, as we all hope, that every child can go to her parents for love and support. But unfortunately, some are not so lucky,” said Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.). “We want to encourage them to go to another responsible adult--a grandmother, an aunt, a minister.”

The bill appears to be an effort by abortion foes to drive wedges within the small majority of Americans who favor abortion rights.