the bill feel that parents not only have the

the bill feel that parents not only have the right but the responsibility to know what a daughter is doing with her body. I respect these parents’ deep concerns.

I am nevertheless opposed to parental notification.

I am opposed because there is a real world out there very different from the one painted by those who have pushed the parental notification bill through the legislature, a world where some parents, when notified of their daughter’s pregnancy, would beat her, throw her out into the street, emotionally abuse her, put her in solitary confinement or take other destructive actions. This is also a world where (once parental notification becomes law) teenagers’ fears, rightly or wrongly, about the consequences of telling their parents about their pregnancy could lead them into dangerous back alleys for butchered abortions.

In my 13 years as a high school teacher, including a number of years teaching family life education, I almost always did my best to persuade pregnant teenage girls to talk with one or both parents. But how could I possibly push parental notification for one of my brightest, sweetest (but most introverted) students who was called a “slut” by her mother when she finally dared to tell her that her uncle had been committing incest with her since she was 11?

One might point out that, under the Virginia parental notification bill, teenagers don’t have to tell their parents; they can go to court. Isn’t that a viable alternative? The answer is: No. Most teenage girls would be scared to death to do such a thing, scared at the thought of explaining something so deeply personal to strangers in the intimidating atmosphere of a judge’s chamber or courtroom, scared that somehow her parents would find out, scared that going to court would mean knowledge of her pregnancy would be leaked to the community. Most teenagers I have known would rather deal with some back-alley than a court.

Even in families where relationships between parents and teenagers are relatively good, parental notification can be inappropriate or destructive. Recently I had lunch with a friend, now in her early 30s, who told me she had had an abortion at 16 and only last year told her mother about it. What would you have done? she asked me. Her father had just gone to the hospital with congestive heart failure. Her mother, the frail parent whom everyone worried about, was frantic with worry and fatigue. Out of compassion and concern she decided not to add to her parents’ burdens. She said: “And I would never, ever have dared to go before a judge to ask for permission to get an abortion.”

Not even terribly abused youngsters want to go to court. When I was a counselor at D.C. Runaway House, I heard hair-raising stories by young runaway girls (and boys) of parental sexual abuse (corroborated, by the way). One might think that these desperate girls would be very willing to go to court, but t’ain’t so. For good reason they know the outcome might be worse—their parents might be hauled before the court, reprimanded, assigned a social