In July, the Senate passed a bill 65-34 that would make it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines for the purpose of abortion without the knowledge of their parents in order to evade parental notification laws.
Last night, the Senate had a cloture vote to get this bill finalized, and if failed 57-42 (60 votes were needed to end 'debate'). The following Democrats flipped:
Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana)
Senator Thomas Carper (D-Delaware)
Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)
Senator Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota)
Senator Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota)
Senator Herbert Kohl (D-Wisconsin)
Senator Ben Nelson (D-Florida)
Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colorado)
I think the facts speak for themselves here.
Thank goodness someone was willing to stand up in order to defeat this horrible bill.
"rare, safe and legal" - well, until there is actually any legislation that might make them more rare
"Thank goodness someone was willing to stand up in order to defeat this horrible bill."
Millions of parents around the country disagree with you:
This is such common-sense legislation. If a state has a parental notification law, and someone is deliberately trying to avoid it by taking a minor across state lines, that should be a Federal crime.
But RSW is right: the pro-abortion lobby could never allow such a common-sense enforcement of existing state laws.
Good family communication cannot be legislated, no matter how much you tell yourselves it can.
I have never met anyone that is pro-abortion. Pro having the right to make that decision myself, absolutely, but not pro-abortion.
I think that anyone who forces a child to have a baby she doesn't want should be arrested for child abuse, both for what they've done to the kid who is forced to have a baby, and for the sake of a child brought into the world before the mother (and father) are able and willing to provide care.
These parental consent laws are inhuman and life-ruining laws and I fail to see how anyone can support them.
I don't know how FOX asked the question so as to elicit so many "pro-consent law" answers, but it's interesting to see in the same FOX poll that more Ameicans identify as pro-choice than pro-life. Something to rememeber when coinservatives start pretending that it's just nine court justices and a couple Hollywood actors who are pro-choice, oppresing a pro-life majority.
I can see some more reasonable arguments for "parential notification" (after, not before, an abortion) but I do oppose both consent and notification laws.
Where is the line drawn between welfare of the child and the rights of parents to make choices for their child? I typically come down on the side of pro-choice, but I see nothing inherently wrong with penalizing someone for deliberately thwarting the laws of the state. The government does this in other areas, such as age of consent laws. Don't like the law? Fight to change it.
I think the number of times when a parent needs to be excluded from the conversation because of abuse issues is very small, and there are already protections for the child in place in that instance.
Are not these some of the same Democrats that flipped to the GOP side on the 'Security' bill last week after both the President and Chaney visited both houses?
Maybe this vote is payback or maybe it is just politics as usual. Opps a cynical comment.
I love these big government liberals that want the government to come into our homes and decide for our families how we should discuss such important issues as whether our children should tell us whether they are having abortions or not. When Children who are having sex find out that they maybe forced to tell there parents if they get pregnant they stop or they don't start. Also sometimes it's a pedophile or step-father who is taking the child for the abortion who because of consent laws's well then have to worry about being caught. There also was the case of a 13 in Chicago who wasn't required to tell her parents she was having an abortion which at least would have been nice for the parents to been able to be there to hold her hand as she died. Abortion isn't always fatal just to the baby you know. That's right the number of abortions should drop they have in other states. Of course our state now has a parental notification law for what it is Indiana has one also Bayh who I thought was Pro-Life his state should hold him accountable.
Interloper,
"I think that anyone who forces a child to have a baby she doesn't want should be arrested for child abuse, both for what they've done to the kid who is forced to have a baby, and for the sake of a child brought into the world before the mother (and father) are able and willing to provide care."
Parental consent laws do not mean that a pregnant girl would automatically be forced to carry a baby full term. That is an incredible leap for you to make. If a girl is pregnant, the parents should be made aware of the situation. This is especially true in the case of rape, because the parents can then pursue rape charges. Right now, girls subjected to molestation are slipping under the radar when the men force them to have abortions.
Parents of a girl seeking an abortion would most likely still allow it to happen. However, they can support her during and after the procedure, as well as help her see how she got into the situation and help her to not let it happen again.
In that same vein, I just love when conservatives feel they have the best answer with regard to me bearing children. Reproductive health is a very private thing, yet many conservatives feel they know what the best decision is for me and my family - without regard to physical or mental health, the health of my relationship, my finances, and a million other factors that come in to play when the decision to have a child is made. It is truly best left to me, my partner, and my physician.
Quite frankly, it isn't any of your business. To discuss my uterus when you don't even know my name, let alone anything else about me is, at minimum, presumptious and rude.
I promise to never discuss your uterus until I know your name. And your uterus' name.
Pro-Choice-So when did your uterus come up and why do you think you can tell us what to say about our families?
"In that same vein, I just love when conservatives feel they have the best answer with regard to me bearing children."
I don't. I do think that parents almost always have the best answer when dealing with these issues for their own children. Most parents agree with me.
"It is truly best left to me, my partner, and my physician."
And, if you're a minor, your parents need to be a part of the decision-making process as well, as they would be for every other medical procedure.
When Children who are having sex find out that they maybe forced to tell there parents if they get pregnant they stop or they don't start.
I'm pro-life, and I like parental consent laws, but the above statement is profoundly stupid.
I'm sorry...but I don't understand what's being implied by this post. I see that eight Democrats voted to not close debate on the bill despite the fact that they voted in favor of the bill in July.
What is this fact supposed to be speaking to? I presume that there is some kind of a conclusion as to why the swing happened, but I fail to see what that conclusion is.
Did the bill have a judical override?
Ah Republicans. So young, so naive.
New Flash: Bush, Inc. aren't going to make abortion illegal any time soon. You can quibble about these minor details, but that is just stoking the base before the mids, and you know it. Abortion is one of the only fundamental issues you folks have. Can you imagine if Roe was overturned? Who would you hate?
Other things Bush is never going to do: reform the tax code, shrink the government, fight against affirmative action (se habla espanol), spend the political capital to get ANWAR opened, and ... and ...
Well. it's easier to just read his campaign speeches. Those parts about "ownership society"? Yeah, right. This guy hasn't done anything even close to the vision. He's a dud.
Thank God.
By and large, teens that have "good communication" with their parents are either not prematurely sexually active or they have information about and access to birth control.
I don't like the idea of children having any medical procedure without their parents' informed consent. However, the notion of children bearing children is even more loathsome.
Abortion was made legal because so many people were dying from back alley and self-styled procedures with coat hangers, knitting needles etc. Legal abortions decrease the likelihood that some teenager is going to try to get rid of the baby on her own (or with the help of a friend) or starve herself trying to hide an unwanted pregnancy, or worse, leave the baby somewhere in a dumpster.
Also, teens that don't have the foresight to avoid pregnancy are often the same ones drinking too much and experimenting with drugs. I have very vivid memories of a young woman in the neighborhood where I grew up. She had her baby at 16. It ended up retarded, cross eyed, and had to have a metal plate put in its head. The family had a very, very harsh life.
I don't think that the world needs more crack babies, more people growing up in poverty, more unwanted children.
On the other side of the issue, there was an article in an east coast paper about a rural couple who were charged with kidnapping their unmarried daughter and trying to force her to have an abortion....apparently because the baby's father was a hip hop star of a different race doing time in prision.
"I'm sorry”¦but I don't understand what's being implied by this post."
Vincent, I really wasn't implying anything. I just wanted the names out of the flippers. I will state explicitly here that I think Bayh is pandering to the Dem "base", not his Indiana constituents, in advance of a presidential primary race.
By the vote totals you can also tell that only a handful of Dems actually supported this bill when the chips were down.
"I just love when conservatives feel they have the best answer with regard to me bearing children."
Pro-choice, we conservatives feel like we have the best answer for the child (life).
You Pro-lifers and Pro-choicers are both for government legislating what is a 'family' decision. This is a family decision first not a government decision, so get out. If you are a 'conservative' Republican back off as you are going against your party's priciples of smaller government. If you are a 'liberal' Democrat, respect the family rights as they are the next unit up from individual rights, protection of which is one of your party's principles.
Should 14 year olds be able to by cigarettes and alcohol? If you have a constitutional right to remove a baby from your body at 14, certainly you have the right to put in a little smoke and alcohol, right?
What about guns? 14 year olds are citizens, right? Then they have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Heck, one of our founding fathers even thought that kids should be trained to use guns.
To me, the bottom line is that a pregnant 14 year old has been raped, and her parents should be notified of that.
“I'm sorry”¦but I don't understand what's being implied by this post.”ÂÂ
Vincent, I really wasn't implying anything. I just wanted the names out of the flippers. I will state explicitly here that I think Bayh is pandering to the Dem “base”ÂÂ, not his Indiana constituents, in advance of a presidential primary race.
Ok. That's what I thought you were alluding to, but I wanted to make sure. Thanks for the explanation.
When Children who are having sex find out that they maybe forced to tell there parents if they get pregnant they stop or they don't start.
I'm pro-life, and I like parental consent laws, but the above statement is profoundly stupid
Michael--Because you don't understand something does not make it stupid. I am not sure why it's confusing to you that people change their action based on the consequences. Children in states were there is no parental consent laws are not as concerned about getting pregnant because they do not have to tell their parents to get an abortion. So when states change their laws and children find out that they will have to start telling their parents about an abortion they are more careful about having or don't have sex. They don't want to have to tell their parents. Statistics show in every state were new Parental Notification laws start the number of Abortions drop.
OK, run4, I'll try to explain this so even you will understand: a decrease in the number of abortions does not mean there's a decrease in sexual activity. You said that parental notification laws mean that children stop having sex or never start having it. That statement was wrong on its face, and was, in fact, so profoundly wrong that it descended into stupidity.
The problem with parental notification laws are not that they encourage parent-child communication. I'm not convinced that they do this on any grand level, but if they do, that's great.
The problem is that they are laws which when applied to EVERY single family can have extremely dire consequences. Not all families are headed by a parent or parents who will react with what is best for the child in mind. In some families, the parent is not present, not particularly interested in the well-being of the child or worse, who got the child pregnant in the first place.
If you believe that an unborn child is a more than just a potential, but a fully formed human life, by all means, it behooves you to fight to prevent abortions.
But being opposed to all abortions doesn't make it a moral practice to top more unjust laws that add to the misery of children on to what you see as an unjust practice.
To give an analogy: I believe that seat belt laws for adults are unjust, but I wouldn't support a law that only allows men to go seatbelt-less.
Finally, I want to reinterate--such believe should incite you to prevent abortions, not push abortions underground into a much more dangerous arena. To wish to save fetuses is a heroic stand. To choose to make piles of corpses of teenagers who had the gall to want to have an abortion or doctors who perform abortions to make you feel like your ideology is being served is barbaric...
There are exceptions built into Parental Notification laws for the abusive situations that you talk about. Once again, you don't make (or not make) good, common sense legislation because of the exceptions.
The rate of child abuse is about 1.2% nationally, and 60% of that is from neglect.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/summary.htm
You could look at just about any law and find some extreme situation that makes the law look bad. What is interesting to me is that the pro-abortion side does not seem to feel comfortable defending their position for the typical case. They almost always use the "A girl was raped by her dad and if she carried the baby to term she will die" situation.
This law would make it illegal to transport a minor across state lines to get an abortion. If a 14 year old cannot legally give consent to have sex, how can she legally give consent to someone to take her to another state to get an abortion?
If a 14 year old asks you to buy her beer, should you be able to?
"Finally, I want to reinterate”“such believe should incite you to prevent abortions, not push abortions underground into a much more dangerous arena. To wish to save fetuses is a heroic stand. To choose to make piles of corpses of teenagers who had the gall to want to have an abortion or doctors who perform abortions to make you feel like your ideology is being served is barbaric”¦"
Outlawing abortion would not by itself create the pile of corpses - each individual would still have to choose to seek a "back alley" abortion. The aborted babies never get a choice now, and all die.
RSW - only rich white men actually make decisions, all other oppressed people are just victims of their circumstances - which were caused by rich white men.
Michael, Sorry then I was wrong I guess you do understood what I wrote then you are stupid. Children who find out that there is a greater chance that they will have to tell their parents about a pregnancy because of parental consent Laws do stop having sex or cut back. I was saying that there was a decrease in Abortion because that is a nice by product of consent laws.
WHAT?
What are you trying to say?
Please use conventional sentence construction, syntax, punctuation, that sort of thing.
If you are saying little Johnnie and little Susie stop the heavy petting from going "all the way" because Susie might have to tell Mom and Dad in order to get an abortion, that is way down the list of reasons to not do the nasty.Telling Janie and Cathy that you did it, and knowing Johnnie will tell his friends, is way way higher on the list to not do it. Do you really think they start sorting out the reasons why they shouldn't do it in the back of the steamed-window minivan?
It's pretty obvious, run4cvrlib, that YOU never got any in high school.
Probably not even second base.
Run4, at no point did I call you stupid. I called your sentence stupid. You may have a brain, but it's impossible to tell from your posts. Most of your writing is riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors, both of which indicate a poor education and inability to read well. You also don't think clearly. Perhaps education and exposure to something other than Fox News might help. In the meantime, I suggest you do some research and learn that your assertions are, well, wrong. Parental notification laws have little effect on abortion rates among minors; in fact, in Tennessee the rate rose when a parental notification law went on the books, and fell once it was repealed. In Texas the rate dropped, but not as fast as it had done before the law went into effect. Really, you don't know what you're talking about. Oh, and your assertion that "children" stop having sex when they find out about parental notification laws? Still stupid.
All that said, I still favor such laws, if only for consistency's sake. Minors require parental approval for medical procedures, save in case of emergency. Why should abortion be sacrosanct?
I suggest you both try doing some reading instead of attacking the messenger. I don't make statements that are not true. You might start with the Guttmacker Institute they have some interesting statistics even though they are pro-abort. The rate drops depending on the type of notification and whether they're allowed to cross state lines to get around the law. Gee I think Memphis is near Illinois do you think it might be pretty easy to cross the state line.
I really don't need you two to grade my work for me I graduated from high school many years ago. But of course if that's all you can do have fun.
" I really don't need you two to grade my work for me I graduated from high school many years ago".
I see.
And to think that run4cvrlib actually ran for election to the Unit 4 school board!
I'm shocked, shocked, he didn't get elected!
Right Anonymous I have seen your spelling its no great shakes. Your right I ran for school board not teacher. I assure you people believe I spell and understand the issues well enough to be on the board or any other organization. I have asked you before how many votes you received in the last election you were in? You have never answered that question you just want to try to scare me with your attacks to see if I will stop commenting and then you scurry away. I guess some people are made to lead and some people are made to spell correctly on a blog anonymously. As I said keep checking my spelling but could you at least tell me which words I am spelling incorrectly so it might correct those words in future posts.
you can't run for teacher, and you can't be one anyway because it requires a college education AND state licensing.
Maybe you could be a teacher's aide, you know, pass out the crayons and paste.
I actually do that when I teach at church. What was it you ran for again? Oh that's right you have to have people that really support you, give you money, maybe you have a couple senators endorse you so that you have 3 or 4 thousand people vote for you. But your just a faceless mouth on Blog so who really cares what you say.
Ben Nelson or Bill Nelson?
Ozzie
Michael said "Parental notification laws have little effect on abortion rates among minors;..."
Parents should know what is happening to their young dependent girls. It doesn't mean that they will be forced to carry a baby full term, or that it is one step closer to overturning Roe v. Wade.
Maybe you could be a teacher's aide, you know, pass out the crayons and paste.
This is pretty insulting--I've never been an aide, but aides do a ton more than this. I wish I had an aid or two in my classroom...
Outlawing abortion would not by itself create the pile of corpses - each individual would still have to choose to seek a “back alley” abortion. The aborted babies never get a choice now, and all die.
You are right from your perspective, but you once again are assuming that everyone believes that aborted babies are human life. You may be right that they are, but you can't prove yourself right by assuming that all of your assumptions are right, and you certainly can't support administration with assumptions that most people wouldn't agree with.
RSW - only rich white men actually make decisions, all other oppressed people are just victims of their circumstances - which were caused by rich white men.
Adam rushes in with a misplaced race card again. You are basically stating that only white men get to make laws. I was addressing the law, not any race issue.
You could look at just about any law and find some extreme situation that makes the law look bad. What is interesting to me is that the pro-abortion side does not seem to feel comfortable defending their position for the typical case. They almost always use the “A girl was raped by her dad and if she carried the baby to term she will die” situation.
That's not what I said. I said that families are different and a large number of families are not feasible applications of the law we are discussing.
Are you willing to punish teenage girls simply because they don't have the same family structure that you do? This is typical--you have no empathy for kids whom you don't approve of decisions and circumstances which their parents created.
I'm not saying that the decision to have sex wasn't a poor one. I'm just saying that that decision has vastly different effects between different families.
When you create a law, the American thing to do is to consider its effects on all citizens. You weigh the positive effect for having the law vs. the negative effect, and EVEN if the positive effect is greater, it still might not be a good law if it is inequitable.
Obviously, if you believe fetuses to be fully human members of our society, there is a benefit to this law. But make no mistake--it is not equitable, so I don't think it is reasonable even if we accept all of your assumptions.
If we don't accept your assumptions, then it's clearly a terrible law, so please refrain from pompous snarkiness like the title of this thread.
For those of you who have zoned out by now, the main point:
Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life or however you want to label those positions, there are plenty of reasons to oppose this law due to its unequal effect on people who already have the most against them in this society. It's not about finding the worst case scenario, it's about showing empathy for those who see the least of it in our society....
Hi
First your comment the "but you once again are assuming that everyone believes that aborted babies are human life" This is not an assumption this is a fact. You may not believe it's a baby because it is at the beginning of its growth cycle but it is human life, it's not a duck, a plant, a worm or what ever it's a human.
How can a law be positive and inequitable at the same time that's real stretch? Besides laws against speeding are inequitable against speeders but we should not repeal them they serve a positive effect.
That's not what I said. I said that families are different and a large number of families are not feasible applications of the law we are discussing.
I think this is one of the reasons for the law. To many times it's an adult male who is the boy friend of the mother or some twenty something male who is taking advantage of a young confused girl that if the mother knew or a Judge found out about the rape or molestation they could correct the problem. But since all of this is done in secret it continues so we can protect abortion.
This is not punishment it is and attempt to get the people that care about them the most involved in the terrible situation. I can't believe how people from the outside of families think that some how they know better how to handle this issue then the parents of the young girl.
Girls being taken to have abortions to cover up molestation is the dirty little secret that no one against parental notification wants to address. Where is their compassion for these helpless girls?
Yes, no one against this law wants to help molested little girls. What a great point. You sure scored big with that one.
As long as we are completely disinterested in a reasonable discussion, let's just rewrite your post:
"Girls being taken to have abortions to cover up molestation is the dirty little secret that no one in favor of parental notification wants to address. Many girls are molested by their own parent or guardian. Where is their compassion for these helpless girls?"
Now can we come back to the actual discussion?
This is not punishment it is and attempt to get the people that care about them the most involved in the terrible situation. I can't believe how people from the outside of families think that some how they know better how to handle this issue then the parents of the young girl.
I think this is the key point of disagreement. If you can't believe that people from the outside of a family might care more for the minors involved that the parents of the young girl, then you need to get more involved in helping troubled families in the community to widen your perspective.
This gets to a greater point--I'm not sure that a lot of people understand what makes a successful family.
In the same way that having a biological male and a biological female doesn't define a successful marriage, just having a child doesn't make you a responsible, caring parent.
Xain Most families are decent families and can help their children work though the pregnancy. You seem to think that most of them are bad so all of them must have the government interfere in their family business.
Handymom's, point is a main part of this discussion whether you like it or not. The lack of Parental Notification allows the shame of abuse to continue.
Xain Most families are decent families and can help their children work though the pregnancy. You seem to think that most of them are bad so all of them must have the government interfere in their family business.
You seem to think that even considering the wide variation of family values and structures is the same thing as suggesting that "most of them are bad". I have no idea how to respond to that.
I am not arguing for mass abortions without parental notification. I'm just arguing that it's crazy to push for making it a federal crime to aid a minor without a responsible parental figure because, no matter how small of a minority they might make up of the general population, they do in fact exist.
I am also arguing that, I'm sorry to say this, I'm not convinced you have any perspective on this issue. I would encourage you to take your sincere good intentions on this issue and get involved with helping troubled minors, rather than attacking people who are actually doing this.
Handymom's point is particular ironic given the blog's lack of interest in the Foley/Hastert connection.
What will stop this shameful abuse is a bunch of courageous people willing to stop looking the other way when "their guy" abuses minors. There are plenty of steps in the process designed to catch those who prey on children without parental notification. Parental notification, if it simply helped catch those predators would be wonderful. However, since it also serves to aid predators, I'm not convinced that it is helpful.
I am not arguing for mass abortions without parental notification. I'm just arguing that it's crazy to push for making it a federal crime to aid a minor without a responsible parental figure because, no matter how small of a minority they might make up of the general population, they do in fact exist. (You do realize there is a Judicial by pass right)
I know that people take other peoples children across state lines without their parent's knowledge with the intent of helping them get abortions. I am saying that if the Young Child is being molested by a family member or an older adult and They are helping this to continue rather then informing the parents or police so they can stop it.
I think I have plenty of perspective maybe you should take a better look at what you are doing. Make sure your just not perpetuating the status quo.
"I know that people take other peoples children across state lines without their parent's knowledge with the intent of helping them get abortions".
How do you know this? Do you have some facts to back this up?