Another push in Congress for parental notification on abortion
by Jim Brown
February 28, 2007
(OneNewsNow.com) - - A Florida congresswoman is urging passage of a bill (HR 1063) that would make it a federal crime for adults to circumvent state parental notification laws to aid minors in obtaining an abortion. Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and 105 co-sponsors have reintroduced the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, or CIANA.If passed, CIANA would prevent adults from transporting minor girls across state lines to have abortions to skirt the parental notification laws in their home states. The bill has passed the House the last two years; however, the Senate has failed to act on it.
Ros-Lehtinen calls CIANA a pro-family, pro-commonsense bill that should be non-controversial. "I have two daughters," she says. "They could not go to 'Lou's Tattoo' down the street and get a tattoo or get their ears pierced unless they had the parental consent or notification if they were under 18," she notes.
"However," the congresswoman points out, "here in the United States it is legal for a minor to have an abortion without parental notification." Thankfully, she observes, more than 30 states currently have laws on the books requiring parental notification before an abortion, but she says opponents of the Florida legislation have put up numerous roadblocks.
Some lawmakers have suggested that CIANA include an exemption for clergy, Ros-Lehtinen notes. "Well, anybody in many states can call themselves Reverend whatever, and they would be excluded," she comments.
Meanwhile, others legislators wanted to insist on "a grandmother exclusion" or a "friendly aunt exclusion," the Florida representative adds. "You know, they have all of these exclusions that would make this bill not have any sense whatsoever," she contends.
Ros-Lehtinen says parental involvement laws are projected to reduce the minor abortion rate by an average of 16 percent. She is confident that CIANA, if passed, would likewise prove effective in reducing the number of abortions performed on minors in the United States.
