April 28, 1999
Abortion bills up for debate in Austin
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___AUSTIN--Veronica Moore first learned about her 15-year-old daughter's abortion after the girl's 19-year-old boyfriend had taken her for the first of two treatments at a Houston abortion clinic.
___Moore, a nurse, went to the clinic while her daughter was there for the second part of the procedure. She begged to be heard, to tell the doctor that her daughter didn't really want the abortion but the boyfriend was forcing it. But she was turned away, she said.
___"I was totally left in the dark, even when I showed up at the clinic," Moore told members of the House State Affairs Committee during a marathon night of hearings on eight abortion bills April 19.
___Moore told her daughter's story while speaking in favor of Senate Bill 30, a parental notification bill already passed by the Senate and now pending in the House. Similar legislation was on track for passage last session but was derailed by a procedural move in the closing hours of that session.
___If Texas required doctors to notify parents of a minor seeking an abortion before performing the procedure--as 39 other states already do--it would have saved the life of her granddaughter, Moore said.
___Her daughter already had started buying baby clothes and supplies with her weekly allowance, Moore told the legislators. She wanted to carry the baby to term, but she was afraid of disappointing her mother with news of the pregnancy, the mother said.
___This fear of failure caused her daughter to succumb to the demands of her boyfriend to have an abortion without any parental knowledge, Moore said. "His attempt was to cover it up before mama found out about it."
___Although by law parents do not have to be involved in the decision for their minor daughters to have abortions, the parents are the ones who have to help their children pick up the pieces afterward, Moore testified. Her daughter suffered multiple complications from the procedure, she said, including excessive bleeding for weeks, pain and debilitating emotional trauma.
___She told of taking time off from work to bathe, feed, clothe and hold her daughter, who suffered recurring nightmares of a baby crying somewhere in the house. "Even today, she still has her nightmares," the mother said.
___The irony, Moore said, is that when she had to call an ambulance to take her daughter to the hospital due to complications from the abortion, "they would not start an IV until I signed a consent form. And at the hospital, they would not do anything until I signed a consent form.
___"Yet this 19-year-old boy could take her for an abortion without my consent," she said. "If you can ... do this to a 15-year-old child just for the sake of $400, then something's wrong."
___Moore's testimony was preceded and followed by testimony from abortion providers who oppose any restriction on access to abortions.
___Dave Cattrell, an abortion provider in San Antonio, told the committee the requirements of Senate Bill 30 would place an unfair burden on the parents who accompany minors to abortion clinics. The bill would require a 48-hour period of parental notification, even if the parent accompanies the minor to the clinic.
___Witnesses and legislators agreed that statistics show about 61 percent of minors seeking abortions come to the clinics with at least one parent.
___Senate Bill 30 would restrict the rights of those parents, the doctor said, because they didn't need further notification and shouldn't have to take additional time off from work to come back.
___Fred Hanson, an abortion provider and medical director at Reproductive Services of Austin, warned the committee that placing any restriction on abortion would increase the demand for unsafe, illegal abortions.
___"If you erect barriers to care, I'm sure children who are disadvantaged ... will turn to illegal means," he said. "Make sure you are not creating problems in solving problems."
___David Scott Miller, chief of obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, echoed that theme by recalling the results of botched "back-alley" abortions he had seen.
___"Though people may not like or approve of abortion, it is something women will seek out," he said.
___Several legislators asked Miller pointed questions in response to his testimony.
___Committee Chairman Steve Wolens, D-Dallas, asked Miller why the Texas Medical Association has not taken a position on the abortion bills pending in the Legislature. Miller, who is a member of that professional organization, said he was embarrassed that the association has not taken a stand against abortion restrictions.
___Rep. Ken Marchant, R-Coppell, asked Miller: "Is there any other medical procedure not required by a life-threatening condition that you would consider doing on a minor without parental consent?"
___After a pause, Miller replied: "Not that comes to mind, no."
___The State Affairs Committee hearing lasted from 4:30 p.m. Monday until the early hours of Tuesday morning. More than 65 witnesses signed in to testify either for or against the bevy of abortion bills. The assigned hearing room was filled to capacity, with the crowd spilling into an overflow room served by video relay.
___Authors of all the bills were given time to explain their legislation and answer questions from committee members. In this process, the committee spent the most time questioning Dianne Delisi, R-Temple, author of Senate Bill 30, also known as House Bill 623. Her bill is considered the most likely of the abortion bills to pass the Legislature this session, and Gov. George W. Bush has said he will sign it if passed.
___Delisi told the committee that opinion polls "consistently show 73 percent of Texans think they should be notified when their minor daughters are seeking abortions."
___Committee members peppered her with a host of questions about hypothetical situations in which the parental notification bill would create hardships or additional problems.
___Much of the discussion centered on a judicial bypass in the bill that would allow minors to avoid parental notification by instead notifying a district court judge or county court judge, who then would determine whether the minor is mature enough to make a decision about abortion.
___Delisi insisted such a bypass is essential for parental notification legislation to pass muster with the United States Supreme Court.
___Throughout the hearing, Rep. Tommy Merrett, R-Longview, asked why it would not be possible or advisable to include clergy as an alternate means of counsel to abortion-seeking minors who don't want to talk with their parents.
___Delisi said she was interested in such a provision at first but ultimately decided it would create more problems and potentially could raise constitutional challenges.
___That sentiment was affirmed by Teresa Stanton Collett, professor of law at South Texas College of Law, who testified later in favor of Senate Bill 30.
___"When you create a bypass that delegates to the church authority that belongs to the state, you have created a privilege for religion," Collett warned, predicting "constitutional difficulties" with such a plan.
___The most pointed questioning of Delisi's bill came from Rep. Debra Danburg, D-Houston, who was responsible for killing a similar bill last session.
___Danburg said Senate Bill 30 "is being promoted as a parental-rights bill, and yet it denies a parent the ability to take one day off and take the child out of school one day" to obtain an abortion.
___Delisi countered that a 48-hour cooling off period is no different than the three-day recision period mandated by law for certain home loans and so-called "lemon laws" for buyers of new cars.
___Danburg also said she has received complaints from numerous district court judges who don't want to be put in the middle of decisions about abortions for minors.
___After several rounds of such statements, Rep. Marchant said he hadn't heard complaints from any judges, a statement affirmed by others on the committee as well. "This must be a phenomenon in Harris County," he concluded.Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!