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Jewish World Review May 31, 2005 / 22 Iyar, 5765 The common sense of parental consent By Kathryn Lopez
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Do you know of any school that dispenses Tylenol without parental
permission? For the most part, they can't. But in six states and the
District of Columbia, it is currently legal for a child to get an
abortion without a parent's permission. In 11 states, parental
consent laws are bogged down in court rulings. The majority of
states, 33, have working prohibitions on kids getting abortions
without parental permission.
The debate over parental notification is red hot: Priscilla Owen's
judicial nomination was partly held up by Democrats because of a
parental-notification ruling she made on the Texas Supreme Court.
Now the nation's top court has agreed to get involved in the issue.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a challenge to New Hampshire's
parental-consent law in its fall term. The Granite State's law
requires a girl's parents to be notified 48 hours before an abortion
is performed. Last year, a federal appeals court found that the law
was unconstitutional based on a 1992 Supreme Court precedent that
forbids any "undue burden" on the exercise of (court-imposed)
abortion rights.
The headlines about the New Hampshire case make the parental
involvement issue seem so much more controversial and complicated
than it should be. "Supreme Court Rejoins Fractious Abortion
Debate," The New York Times announced.
Take away the obvious frenzies that come with any abortion or
Supreme Court-related matter (never mind the two combined), the big
picture this time is as clear-cut common sense as you get in the
abortion debate.
In New Hampshire — the state that now heads up the steps of the
nation's highest Court to defend its right to require parental
notice for minor abortions — children under 18 must have a parent's
permission to use tanning machines. Tanning machines. If they're
under age 14, they must also have a doctor's note.
Some of those other "free" states also have skewed priorities: In
California, parental permission is also required for 14 to 17
year-olds to use tanning machines, and children under 14 are
prohibited from using them, period. These same kids can have
abortions without so much as a peep to a parent.
In New York, where there is no abortion parental-consent or notice
law, kids' can't get a nose ring or a tattoo without the folks' OK.
Music to many parents ears, perhaps, but ludicrous when you realize
a girl can get an abortion at the clinic across the street from the
tattoo parlor without Mom or Dad knowing she is pregnant.
An April Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll found 78 percent of
respondents supporting requiring parental-notification for children
obtaining abortions. Similar polls have had similar results —
including an April Quinnipiac University poll that had 73 percent in
agreement with notification requirements.
At the heart of the yelling against a common-sense attempt to keep
kids away from making such a grave decision without parental
inclusion comes down to the worry that guides a lot of the actions
from the Left in America today: an opposition to anything that might
in anyway restrict legal abortion in America.
Dems like Hillary Clinton talk the talk about wanting to find a
common ground on abortion, but then — as Senator Clinton has —
oppose a bill now before the Senate that would prohibit a teen in a
parental-consent state from obtaining an abortion in a
"reproductively free" state.
Until abortion advocates like Hill walk the talk and embrace
perfectly sensible restrictions on their sacred right to privacy,
good luck reaching that majority of Americans who see parental
consent laws as simply normal.
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Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
