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be manipulative and deceitful and keep things from your parents. The law now says parents have a God given right to care for their children,” said Anne Kincaid of the Family Foundation of Virginia.
The bill requires that doctors inform at least one parent of a girl age 17 or younger 24 hours before performing an abortion. If the doctor does not inform a parent, he or she may be charged with a class III misdemeanor, which carries a line but no prison sentence.
The bill includes a judicial bypass that would allow a juvenile court judge to waive the parental notification requirement if the girl appears to be mature or if waiving the requirement is found to be in the girl’s best interest.
“It’s an irony that we decide that for whatever reason she is too immature to get a medical procedure, she is mature enough to be a mother,” said Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax). Sen. Howell led the opposition to the bill in the Senate.
Parental notification bills have been introduced and passed in the House for 10 years, always to die in the Senate. The bill died in one committee of the Senate this year but was revived in another committee and sent to the Senate floor.
The Senate voted earlier last week to reduce the age in the bill from 18 to 16. The House rejected this move and the Senate concurred March 6. That vote meant the bill passed.
In Virginia, 82,363 abortions were performed in 1990. Of that total, 7,187 were performed on girls' age 17 or younger, according to statistics kept by the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
Opponents of the bill claim it has serious constitutional problems as well as a financial impact on the state. Those arguments, said Karen Reschke of Planned Parenthood, should force Wilder to veto the bill.
“The state Supreme Court estimated it would cost $331 for every bypass case just in court costs, . which the bill requires the state to cover. That alone could cost the state $3 million and the money is not in the budget,” Ms. Reschke said.
She argued that by not providing money for judicial bypass the state may face U.S. constitutional challenges to the new law if it is signed by Gov. Wilder. Ms. Reschke said she is not threatening such a suit now.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Pennsylvania case this spring that proponents and opponents of abortion say could be an impetus to discard the 1972 Roe vs. Wade decision on abortion. That decision granted a constitutional right to abortion.
Ms. Reschke said that parental notification bills are attempts to “chip away at that right.” Supporters of the bill disagreed.
'This is a parental rights and family rights bill," said Sen. Joseph Benedetti, R-Richmond.
Terry's DUI bill
killed in end
Attorney General Mary Sue Terry personally witnessed the defeat of her bill to allow magistrates to immediately take away the driver’s licenses of persons accused of drunk driving.
A version of the bill passed both houses of the General Assembly but was killed in the last minute crush of legislative action on the final day of the Assembly session. The bill died when the House and Senate could not reach a compromise on the measure. Miss Terry, after learning of the last minute wrangling, appeared outside the Senate chambers to lobby lawmakers personally.
“I think her being there may
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