Florida House Passes Parental Notice Ballot Measure

[Snazzy]

Florida House Passes Parental Notice Ballot Measure
The Associated Press
Published: May 1, 2004

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - In the waning hours of the legislative session, the state House approved a ballot measure late Friday that would require parental notification when girls seek abortions.

The House voted 93-24 for the measure, which was previously approved by the Senate and will go before voters in November.

Lawmakers want to change the state constitution because last summer the Florida Supreme Court ruled that a 1999 parental notice law violated the privacy rights of girls. The ballot measure would create an exception to that privacy right.

The measure includes a requirement that any future law would have to include a "judicial bypass" to let girls who are victims of incest seek a waiver of the law from a judge.

....

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGAEPR28PTD.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. don't they get it? did they miss the 1.15 million people in DC? eom

[murielm99]

5. We watched a video in our bus, on the way to the march.

It was about judicial bypass, and how it drives many girls to illegal abortions.

It was partially narrated by the parents of a girl who had died of an illegal abortion. She was afraid to tell them she was pregnant, and could not get a bypass. She was 17.

Her parents were devastated that she had not come to them for help. But even in the best of families, some kids think they can handle everything on their own.

In a typical year in Duluth, for example, only 12 bypasses are granted. If a judge has a personal objection to abortion, he or she does not have to grant any bypasses at all.

What minor knows the ins and outs of the court system? How does she keep it secret that she is seeking legal advice, if she figures out how to get help at all? How does she get out of the house, or out of school? What if she is not old enough to drive?

Don't kid yourselves that illegal abortion has gone away. It still kills women who are poor, desperate and underage.

[DBoon]

2. Will parental notification also be required...

When teenage boys try to buy condoms?

When teenagers seek treatment for effects of illegal drugs?

When teenagers seek treatment for alcohol abuse?

When teenagers seek mental health counseling?

When teenagers seek treatment or advice about any medical or psychological condition without their parents' knowledge?

[Eye and Monkey]

3. Right to privacy unless you are adolescent, female, and pregnant.

If that stands Constitutional muster, this is Bizarro America.

[TahitiNut]

4. With 'properly rigged' Touchscreen polling machines ...

... they can get whatever they want. :shrug:

[DaveSZ]

6. These laws are really disgusting

We have so many apartheid laws for young people in this country, and kids are more free in most other Western countries.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Several problems with judicial bypass. First, not enough attorneys

who will donate their time to stand in front of judges, convincing them that the girls are mature enough to decide whether or not to terminate the pregnancy. Second, by the time the hearing gets scheduled, the pregnancy is advanced to the point where the health of the minor is jeopardized if the procedure is performed. Third, the minor has to find a way of flying under her parents' radar to first attend the judicial hearing, and then the medical procedure (unless it's a state with a WAITING PERIOD, wherein make that THREE times she can't explain where she was).

Either girls will hop on a bus and go to another state with more lenient laws (unlikely), engage in a new underground economy of abortion butchers (hopefully not), or just have an unwanted pregnancy.

[LittleApple81]

8. I know that there have been documented cases where FATHERS are

the abusers who cause the teenage pregnancy. How are the girls going to notify the parent?