Florida lawmakers will keep rewriting the abortion notification law until the judiciary rules as they like.
Not long ago I wrote a diary about our Florida legislators had their nose out of joint about the abortion notification law for those under 18. I pointed out that an appellate court said the 17 year old was capable of making her decision to have an abortion. This made our legislators livid. They said they would close the “safety valves” that would protect abused girls and difficult circumstances. Here is that diary.
Florida senator threatens to remove “safety valve” from abortion notiifcation law.
Today another legislature says he will start rewriting the law right away. He is another one whom I thought had a little common sense. So I will post the article about his efforts to make sure the courts do as the legislators wish. First though, check out the survey on this issue…maybe take part.
http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage
No is at 54% right now.
Lawmaker Writing Changes to Abortion Law
The teenager argued she should be allowed to have the abortion without telling her parents because having a child would interfere with her education, and she might be told to leave her staunchly Catholic family home. That was enough to satisfy the requirements for a waiver to the notification law, the appeals court ruled.
But state Rep. John Stargel, R-Lakeland, says that’s a misreading of what the waiver clause in the law is supposed to allow.
“The exemption to parental notification was intended to be if there was a physical threat to a girl’s well-being, not simply because it was inconvenient,” said Stargel, who said he will submit the changes in the Florida House prior to the 2006 session, which begins March 7.
So Representative Stargel does not think it would be bad enough that the girl thinks her strongly Catholic parents would kick her out. It sounds good to say that the girl and parents could talk things over, become close and be good buddies. Let’s face it sometimes it just does not work out that way.
He has two things he says need changing, but you can just bet your bottom dollar if a judge allows a minor to have an abortion….they will tighten it again.
for getting a waiver and the time allotted for a judge to make a decision in the case. The changes Stargel will propose are:
Changing the 48 hours a judge has to decide such cases to five business days.
“Under the law, Judge Masters had 48 hours to appoint an attorney for the girl, hold a hearing, make a determination and write her decision or the waiver would be granted automatically,” Stargel said. “There is a concern that some judges opposed to the parental notification could simply exercise a pocket veto by delaying longer than the 48 hours.
Redefining the grounds for exception from the current “best interests of the minor” to “physical well-being” of the minor. Stargel said the “best interest of the minor” clause is far too vague.
“What is the best interest of the child? Mom and Dad won’t buy me a car?” Stargel said. “The clause was written to protect children who could be in harm’s way from a parent if told about the abortion,” he said.
The very oddest part of all of this is the way it has changed my own view of things. We raised 3 daughters, and I always felt that it was something parents should talk over with their daughters. I guess it never occurred to me to be any other way……until I saw the way they have turned this into a political/religious/right wing extremist thing. The lawmakers are playing to their right wing fundamentalist base, and they are going to be allowing some who truly need their privacy on this issue to be hurt. I changed my mind on this when they made it into a political thing.
What Florida needs is a well-funded nutjob.
Seriously.
One who’ll go right out there and say openly and proudly what they are all speaking of in code.
“We know that parents are incompetant. Without the government to help them raise their children, how in heavens name will they manage?”
“Nothing should override the parental bond over a child, except the state government, of course.”
“If the legislators weren’t worrying about our kids, we might have to parent and raise them ourselves. Who has the time?”
One loose cannon to bring down the entire ship of fools, and wake the ‘moderates’ up to the insanity that passes as “conservatism”.
We raised 3 daughters, and I always felt that it was something parents should talk over with their daughters. I guess it never occurred to me to be any other way……until I saw the way they have turned this into a political/religious/right wing extremist thing. The lawmakers are playing to their right wing fundamentalist base, and they are going to be allowing some who truly need their privacy on this issue to be hurt. I changed my mind on this when they made it into a political thing.
Good for you floridagal, and I hope other parents are paying attention.
When I first began working in the field of abortion care, my own daughters were still teenagers. At that time, Texas didn’t require even parental notification, let alone the more restrictive parental consent that is now the law. And I, too, floridagal, felt conflicted about what was right in these cases.
Nothing clarifies one’s vision like a long, hard look at reality. This is what I have seen. If a teenage girl has a mother worthy of the name, her mom is the first person she goes to when she finds out she’s pregnant. That was true before the law required it, and it is true now. If she feels that she can’t tell her mother, there’s an excellent reason for that — and the same, of course, goes for her dad.
My god, just think about it. Imagine being told that in order to be “allowed” to have an abortion, you had to obtain an attorney for legal representation, make application to a judge for permission and then prove that you “deserved” to have one — a process that includes revealing to a middle-aged stranger any intimate details of your life that he (for most judges are men) might ask about and having that information become part of a court record.
I’ve seen 30 year-old women go into an emotional meltdown over abortion restrictions far less severe than this one. If 16 year-old kids do it all the time — and they do — then think how much worse their alternatives must be. That’s why I’ve also seen a girl whose application was denied (as in this case, for no clear reason) appeal her case all the way to the Texas Supreme Court.
When I began meeting with judicial bypass applicants, to answer their questions and provide the counseling they need to prepare for their hearings, I was amazed by their high degree of maturity and responsibility. But no more; I have come to expect it as the norm. Girls who are still mental and emotional children themselves would never make it through the process.
On Tuesday I met with a young woman who’s headed for a major East Coast university next year with a full scholarship. Her mother is mentally ill, with a history of suicide attempts, and her long-estranged father lives on another continent. She wasn’t trying to evade responsibility, but chose the judicial bypass option out of compassion and loving concern for the only parent she has. And hers is not an unusual case.
These contemptible anti politicians act out of their sure and certain knowledge that if their own daughters became pregnant, their parents are the very last people they’d confide in. And there’s a very good reason for that, too.