Stop Parental Involvement Laws!!!!!

• 350,000 teenage girls get pregnant every year, and about 1/3 of them get abortions.
• The following profession medical groups oppose parental consent laws:

The American Medical Association
The American Academy of Pediatrics
The American Academy of Family Physicians
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine
The American Medical Women’s Association.
The American Public Health Association
Any delay in recieving an abortion, even one as short as five days, will increase the possibility of complications.   A 1992 study by the American Medical Association which showed that parental involvement laws increase the length of time it takes for the abortion to occure.  This also increases the medical risk involved in an abortion.

• In order to avoid consulting their parents, minors may travel across state lines in order to get an abortion.  If a woman has a medical problem on the trip home, medical care will not be readily accessable to her, possibly putting her in grave danger.
• In some families, if the child tells their parents about the pregnancy and the desire to get an abortion, the parent may threaten their child, verbally abuse them, beat them, or throw them out of the house.

In one such case, 13-year old girl was raped by her mother’s boyfriend and impregnated.  As required by state law, she told her mother of the pregnancy.  The mother called her daughter a slut and threw her out of the house.
• Parents who are opposed to abortion may force their daughter to continue the pregnancy, even if it’s against her wishes and even if she will have to face a significant health risk.
• In order to maintain secrecy, a woman may decide to have an illegal abortion.  These type of abortions are performed by unlicensed practitioners, often in unsafe conditions. The desire to maintain secrecy has bene one of the leading reasons for illegal abortions deaths since 1973.

Legal arguments against Parental Involvement Laws:

• Parental Involvement laws violate the original decision that legalized abortion, Roe vs. Wade (1973).  Nowhere in this decision does it say that abortion rights only apply to legal adults, nor does it ever say that a minor must notify their parents before having an abortion.
• Of the 42 states that have enacted parental involvement laws (9 of which are currently under court injunction), 30 of these states have age of sexual consent laws that are under 18.  This means that the state gives minors of varying ages (between 14-17) the legal right to have sex.  However, these states do not give the minors the right to fully deal with the consequences of it.
• Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia allow for minors to receive care for STDs without parental consent.  Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia permit a minor to consent to prenatal care and delivery.  Clearly, further illogic exists here.  The fact that a minor can consent to delivery but not to an abortion is yet another example of the legal hypocrisy that 41 state governments have chosen to engage in.
• Under this law, a minor is not considered mature enough to abort the baby without parental consent or notification.  However, under those laws, it can be inferred that a woman is considered mature enough to raise the baby.
• Parental Involvement laws are willing to consider a minor mature in some areas but not mature in others.

• A judicial waiver is a way for a minor to not have to inform or get permission from their parents prior to their abortion.
• In order to obtain a waiver, they must appear before a judge and obtain a waiver.
• However, minor may not have sufficient legal resources to prepare for the hearing.
• The court house may be a large distance from them.
• They may not be able to attend a hearing because of school, work, or lack of transportation.
• The judge that holds the hearing may be staunchly pro-life and refuse to give a waiver no matter what the circumstances.
• According to one U.S. District Court judge, the judicial waiver process takes at minimum twenty-two days.

Since a delay of even five days can put the teenage girl at even more risk, this presents a signifigant problem.

• Parental involvement laws try to promote communication in a family.  However, they fail to accomplish that objective.
• According to the Louise Melling, Acting Director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, “Most teens do involve their parents in their abortion decisions, but the majority of those who don’t refuse to out of fear.  The state can’t turn families into loving families by imposing parental involvement laws.”
• In a healthy family, children will inform their parents of such a decision, free from fear of any consequences.
• A national survey of unmarried minors who had abortions, 61% discussed the decision with their parents.
• However, a majority of teens who choose not to inform their parents of their abortion decision do so out of fear.

According to the same survey, 22% of the teens who didn’t tell their parents feared being kicked out of the house.
8% feared a repeating of prior abuse.
12% didn’t live with either parents.
14% had parents who abused drugs or alcohol.
• Instead of promoting healthy family communication, parental involvement laws put minors in danger.

1)  Using the media: Using the media is one effective way of spreading information about parental involvement laws and increasing awareness of its problems.  Before any action can take place to repeal parental consent laws, the public must be educated and opposed to them.  Recent statistics show that 73% of American’s are currently in favor of parental consent laws.   Therefore, a signifigant media campaign must be undertaken in order to clear up America’s ignorance on the issue.  However, as prior experience in activism shows, activist’s advancing progressive causes tend to run into difficulty when dealing with the mainstream media.   Therefore, a careful media strategy must be devised before anti-parental involvement law forces deal with the media.  First, the media must be attracted and alerted that there is a problem.  The best way to do this would be via a scandal.  For example, 12 years ago, a woman named Rebecca Bell died from an illegal abortion she had after trying to avoid Indiana’s parental consent laws.   Such a sensational and tragic event would surely attract media attention, and could conceivably start action to inform the public of the problems with parental consent laws (of course, before any action were undertaken, permission of the parents would be nessecary so that it would not look like the tragedy were being exploited).  Coverage of such an event must be interesting and the event must be timely so that it can be reported.  However, the media alone will not continue to pressure politicians to make a change   That pressure must be maintained by the anti parental-involvement law activists (ways to do that will be discussed later).  Specific alternatives must be pressed for so that politicians can not merely promise to act on repelling parental involvement laws and then break that promise once the media pressure is over.  For example, a bill to repel such laws could be drafted by those opposed to parental involvement laws and shown to the media, needing only a member of the state legislature to sign it.  To keep the media interested, the issue must be kept media-friendly and interesting.  Protests and media-friendly material (such as the parents of Rebecca Bell speaking against parental involvement laws) would be one way of accomplishing this.  Essentially, the media must be used in order to obtain results, not just coverage.  Increasing awareness of the issue is not the only goal of using the media.  Activists must try to use the media to obtain the results they want.   A media campaign should have be goal-orientated, meaning that it should have specific goals (getting parental involvement laws repelled) and ways of accomplishing those goals (legislation repelling such laws).

2)  Using coalitions: Prior to any direct action, coalitions must be formed to strengthen the cause of getting parental involvement laws repelled.  Any coalition formed regarding opposition to parental involvement laws must be united in their opposition to such laws, and the value of any coalition is clear:  It would help groups accomplish together what they could not accomplish by themselves.   Groups could be brought in to cover various aspects of the parental involvement law debate; moral, scientific, political and legal.  For example, to help with the moral aspect of the debate, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice could be brought into the coalition.  The group is itself a coalition of religious clergy and members who use faith to guide their political believes, which are “pro-faith, pro-family, pro-choice.”  This includes a pro-choice and anti-parental involvement law stance.  Such a group would strengthen the moral standing of the coalition and help defend the coalition against attacks sure to be made by religious groups and the Christian right.  The ACLU could also be included in the coalition.

The ACLU has a repeated record of success in defending civil liberties (including reproductive freedom cases), financial resources, lobbying contacts and legal expertise.  They have also had prior success in getting parental consent laws appealed; their suit against the state of New Jersey got a parental consent law in that state struck down.   Their entry into the coalition would also give the coalition further legal legitimacy and help earn further support of liberal America.  To help earn the coalition scientific legitimacy and strength, numerous groups could be brought into the coalition.  As listed about, numerous medical groups oppose parental involvement laws.  One such group, the American Medical Association, is one of the biggest lobbying groups in Washington.  They ranked #10 in money given to candidates during the 1996 Presidential election, #13 in the 1996 Congressional election, #1 in direct lobbying by a corporation or organization, and #4 in the largest contributors to Political Action Committees (PACs) in 1998.   Clearly, they have impressive lobbying clout and political that could be very useful in such a campaign.  Additionally, the addition of merely one, let alone several medical groups to the coalition would give the appearance of scientific legitimacy.
    Each group has something to offer to the coalition, and would enable a multi-angled attack on the issue.  To insure success, groups should agree on a strategy, with clearly defined methods and results.  Once this is achieved, the goals should be written down so that all parties know what they are getting into and there is no further room for disagreement on these major points.  Additionally, there is no opportunity for any partners to break their promises, as the goals are clearly defined and set.  Decision making abilities and control must be decided prior to any action, and media responses should be divided according to each partners strengths.

3)  Protests:  To further increase awareness on the issue and to force politicians to address the problem, protests, such as sit-ins and marches, should be organized.  There are two benefits to protests.  First, they increase public awareness by garnering media attention.  The media loves to cover conflict and sensationalism, which is why the larger the protest, the more media tends to cover it.  Protests should take place in front of government offices, such as the state legislature building or state supreme court.  This was, it is clear who anti parental involvement forces are protesting against.  Additionally, protests should try to maximize their media coverage by making the protests as interesting as possible.  Costumes or other eye-catching material is likely to make the media more interested in a protest.   Protests should involve speeches, marches, or sit-ins.
 The second purpose of protests would be to show government officials that a problem exists and that citizens are opposed to the unjust laws they have passed and want to see change enacted.  Continuous pressure by anti parental involvement law forces could eventually force politicians or the judiciary to address the problem.  To help accomplish this goal, protests should be large, noticeable, and disruptive.  At the same time, they should, at such protests, propose specific solutions so that politicians could not claim to the public that no solution exists.  In this case, proposing a bill to repel parental involvement laws would suffice.

4) Using lawyers:  The best chance that anti parental-involvement law activists have at getting rid of such laws are by working through the courts, and thus, through lawyers.  Activists have had prior success in getting parental involvement laws repelled; currently, eight states have had parental involvement laws repelled,  with the most recent success coming in the state of New Jersey.   Since the courts are involved in this aspect of the attack on parental involvement laws, lawyers are obviously nessecary.  They provide legal expertise, help identify legal problems and which statues need to be repelled, can draft the actual legislation, and are vitally nessecary to getting laws repelled in courts.  However, according to The Activists Handbook, using lawyers can have many drawbacks.   Lawyers can become involved in the decision making process, cutting off the power of social activists and over-concentrating on the a legal point of view.  Attorneys roles in the decision-making process must be limited.  To accomplish this, anti parental involvement activists should do three things.   First, attorneys should be used for technical assistance only.  In this case, attorneys roles should be limited to actually fighting the legal battles and drafting legislation to repel parental involvement laws.  The leaders of the anti parental involvement law movement would continue to determine strategy, not the lawyers.  Secondly, all non-legal decisions must remain in the hands of the leaders of the anti parental involvement movement.  Advise of lawyers would be sought out, however, they would not control the process.  Lastly, we would work with lawyers who are sympathetic to our concerns, know their limits in the decision making process, and who have prior experience in such legal battles.  Lawyers from the ACLU, for example, would be ideal in this situation.
    In terms of legal strategy, the best strategy would be to peruse getting such laws declared unconstitutional by state courts.  Eight of these laws have been either halted or nullified entirely by state courts.   Successful legal challenges would not only nullify laws in these individual states, but they may pressure other states into repelling such laws, stop states or the federal government from passing new laws, or provide legal precedent for other state courts to strike down such laws.

Sample Letter:
    Want to help and live in the state of Pennsylvania?  Click here to print out this sample letter to send to your local state senator or representative.  Click here to find your local state representative and senator.
 
 

Works Cited

1)  Parental Consent and Notification Laws for Teen Abortions:  Pro and Con.
 August 18, 1999.
 <http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_pare.htm>
2)  New ACLU Ad Issustrates Dangers of Requiring Teens to Tell Their Parents Before Obtaining An Abortion.
 August 28, 2001.  American Civil Liberties Union. <http://www.aclu.org/features/f082801a.html>
3)  Roe in a nutshell.
 <http://members.aol.com/abtrbng/roefl-02.htm>
4)  ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project:  Parental Involvement Laws
 April 2001.  American Civil Liberties Union.
 <http://www.aclu.org/library/parent.html>
5)  STATE AGE OF SEXUAL CONSENT LAWS.
 <http://www.actwin.com/eatonohio/gay/consent.htm>
6)  Laws Requiring Parental Consent or Notification for Minor’s Abortion.
 March 2001.  Planned Parenthood.
 <http://www.plannedparenthood.org/library/ABORTION/StateLaws.html>
7)  Parental Consent
 The Coalition for Positive Sexuality.
 <http://www.positive.org/Resources/consent.html>
8)  NARAL:  NARAL Resources:  Fact Sheets
 January 22, 2001.  NARAL:  Reproductive Freedom & Choice.
 <http://www.naral.org/mediaresources/fact/parental.html>
9)  American Public Health Association - APHA
 American Public Health Association
 <http://www.apha.org/legislative/factsheets/fs10.htm>
10)  Go ask your mother
 2001.  Lane, Kris.
 <http://societypolitics.chickclick.com/articles/12376pl.html>
11)   Shaw, Randy. The Activist’s Handbook.
 University of Caliornia Press:  Los Angeles, 2001.
 P115-128, 153, 158, 191
12)  The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
 2000.  The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
 <http://www.rcrc.org>
13)  Paterson, Thomas E.  The American Democracy.
 McGraw-Hill High Education:  New York, 2001.
 P54