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When our elected officials don’t do what the voters want, we call that arrogant. When they do that which will get them votes in November, we say they are pandering. But our Founding Fathers knew that sometimes people need to “take their medicine,” or we’re left with a sick patient. Look no further than federal spending excesses for an example.
In Richmond this week they’re going to decide whether to force young women to tell their parents, indeed, to get their parents’ permission, before having an abortion performed. It’s the kind of law that’s easy to like: everyone ought to hope that children, and we are talking about children, have an open relationship with their parents and can discuss with them something as serious as abortion. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case. By the time a girl needs an abortion, her parents lave often failed in a number of ways, and in many cases her relationship with her parents is in big trouble. It’s a fair bet ;hat most people under the age of 40 know someone who found lerself in those exact circumstances.
After 10 years of being killed in Senate committee, an ibortion-permission bill has the best chance of passing the General Assembly ever, according to supporters. - The bill has been introduced and passed by the House of Delegates every year for 10 years but has traditionally died in a Senate committee.
The bill died earlier in session, again in a Senate committee, after passage by the House. The bill was revived last Sunday by Sen. Mark Early, R-Chesapeake, in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee. Sen. Early amended an unrelated House bill dealing with juvenile courts by adding the parental consent requirement. The bill was then passed on to the Senate floor.
The bill survived a floor maneuver March 2 intended to rerefer the bill to the more hostile Senate Finance Committee. Opponents of the parental consent measure claimed the bill would cost the state between $3.5 million and $5 million in additional welfare payments and court costs.
Sen. Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, led the unsuccessful battle to send the bill to the Finance Committee. Sen. Howell, who opposes parental abortion permission, says the bill would result in 25 to 30 percent fewer abortions and would increase the number of teen mothers on state financial assistance rolls. Another likely result is that more Virginia girls seeking abortions will travel across state lines, probably to the District or Maryland, making post-abortion medical care less convenient. In other states, girls have put their own lives in danger by not treating post-abortion infections properly—the doctor’s office was a long way away.
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