Friday, April 29, 2005

Curtailing the Evading of Parental Consent Laws

The Washington Post is featuring an article on the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act that will make it a crime "for doctors or other adults to help patients under 18 evade parental-notification requirements by crossing state lines for an abortion" if passed by the U.S. Senate.

Here's a nay-sayer:

Warren M. Siegel, director of adolescent medicine and chair of pediatrics at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn, N.Y., said in an interview that the law could lead minors to have later-term abortions because they might be more hesitant to consult an adult. "It's an unreasonable burden to have physicians know all the legal loopholes and laws in the 49 states that they don't practice in," he said.

I wonder if Siegel actually believes that children from Michigan will be transported to California for abortions or that children from Florida might be transported to Illinois. This intent of this act is obviously to curb the transportation of minors to nearby states where there isn't a parental consent law.

Also, is it really that hard for an abortionist to have a sheet of paper that says which states have parental consent or parental notification laws? All an abortionist would have to do is print off this sheet from National Right to Life that describes the particular features of state parental consent laws and consult it every time a minor from another state seeks an abortion from them. So much for "unreasonable burden."

By the way who are the "extremists" on this issue?

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