It looks like Republicans have finally found a big business they won’t cozy up to: Big Abortion:
The House passed a bill on Wednesday making it a federal crime for any adult to transport an under-age girl across state lines to have an abortion without the consent of her parents. A vote on a similar bill is expected in the Senate later this spring or early this summer, and backers says its chances are good.
The measure, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, passed 270 to 157 and was a victory for abortion opponents, who have been pushing an ambitious agenda now that Congress is under greater Republican control…
The bill, intended to prevent minor girls from going to different states to circumvent more restrictive laws in their home states, applies to adults who accompany girls 17 and under. It also, for the first time, requires doctors who perform abortions on under-age girls to comply with state notification laws, and in some cases to notify the girl’s parents in person. Violators could face a $100,000 fine and a year in jail…
But Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, said the bill was necessary to prevent “abortion mills” from luring young girls across state lines by advertising in states like his, where there are no notification laws.
Big abortion. Who knew?
Mr.Ortiz
I’m sorry, “luring girls”? Yeah, because girls just can’t resist the thrill of an abortion. They’re addicted, and we need to stop licensed medical professionals from taking advantage of these poor abortioholics.
I wish every girl and boy in this country felt they could share anything with their parents, but most don’t, and some with good reason. It’s a good idea for these girls to talk to an adult and know their options, but make it a trained counselor, not someone who will go ballistic and throw the girl out on the street.
Shinobi
Clearly none of these “representatives” have ANY idea what it is like to be a pregnant teenage girl. Or any imagination at all.
norbizness
Shinobi: Just because the last abortion bill signing ceremony looked like this shouldn’t lead you to conclude that there isn’t an incredible amount of empathy from lawmakers for teenaged girls facing difficult decisions.
Maybe they can call it the Loretta Lynn Success in Country Music Even After Having a Kid at Age 13 Act next time. I think it spells “PATRIOT”.
Jon H
It’s the “Fugitive Womb Act”.
Shinobi
Yes, Clearly tons of empathy from the old rich Christian white men. How could I have missed it.
stormy70
I think this is a good law, and I am prochoice through the 1st trimester. If you need parental permission to get your ears pierced as a minor, then I see no reason a teenage girl should not have parental permission to get an abortion. Also, “trained” counselors at Planned Parenthood do have an agenda, and they do not report instances of statutory rape to the authorities. Like it or not, teenage girls are getting preyed upon by much older men (over 25 yrs old), who gladly take girls to get an abortion. Abortion should be regulated, it is a major medical procedure, medically and psychologically, and should be treated as such.
John Cole
I wasn’t commenting on the law itself, but the idiot from New Jersey complaining about ‘abortion mills.’
Mr Furious
“Also, “trained” counselors at Planned Parenthood do have an agenda”
Yeah, that “truth” and “informing a woman of all her options” is some kind of insidious agenda. Not following your agenda is not the same as having an agenda.
You can be sure that the “trained” staff at PP are a hell of a lot more trained and informed than any of the jackass men writing abortion-related legislation. And that includes Dr. “AIDS from tears” Frist.
Stormy70
“Abortion Mills” is stupid, but this is politics, and like it or not, Abortion clinics are businesses. Profits are down in some clinics, and not all Planned Parenthood clinics will inform a “client” of all their choices. I have friends who have had abortions, and they were not given options, but told abortion was the only answer. Some regret it, some do not, but they were not told about adoption. One friend was 16, and her boyfriend was 36, but noone asked her who impregnated her, nor did they address her emotional needs. She said they treated it like getting a tooth pulled, while she cried the whole time. I guess my agenda would be an actual Doctor/Patient consultation for a major medical procedure, not a “trained” counselor. My friends talked to the Doctor all of five minutes. All went to Planned Parenthood. Since when does Congress have to be trained in anything to pass a law. Congress as a whole, is clueless.
Kimmitt
Laws which allow minors to have abortions without parental notification exist for the same reason that laws which allow the state to take children from their parents exist; both make the lives of good parents less secure, and both are absolutely necessary.
J. Michael Neal
The rhetoric over the bill isn’t nearly as infuriating as the rhetoric, authored by Sensenbrenner, over the amendments.
Kathy Cole
Stormy, please tell me why a girl whose father got her pregnant should have to ask that father for permission to have an abortion?
Brian C.B.
Yeah, I caught a reference to the cushy, cushy professional specialty that is abortion-provision a few weeks ago on The Poor Man’s site, in an unusually incoherent rant quoted from Kaye Groghan. She loathed, literally, the abortionists who swill champagne in the backs of their limos. Wow, I thought. How soon before I start seeing ads claiming “You Too Can Have the Lifestyle of Which You’ve Always Dreamed! Perform Abortions in Your Own Home! For NO MONEY DOWN!” Congressman Smith isn’t talking about older men who get teens pregnant and are willing to pay to end the pregnancy; he’s imagining abortion touts who troll Mississippi ice cream parlors on commission from one of those hundreds of abortion farms that, in the febrile brain of the theocrats behind this bill, clutter the strip malls at the Maryland borders.
As for Planned Parenthood not providing adoption counseling, well, anyone reaches puberty without knowing, by dint of Oprah, television movies, the phone book, or American churches, that adoption might be an option, perhaps it’s best that she not reproduce.
Mike the Analyst
John,
Who knew? Most pro-lifers.
If you question the concept of “Big Abortion” do a little math:
From the Information Please website (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904509.html):
“In 2000, 1.31 million abortions took place, down from an estimated 1.36 million in 1996.”
“In 2000, the cost of a nonhospital abortion with local anesthesia at ten weeks of gestation ranged from $150 to $4,000, and the average amount paid was $372.”
These numbers mean that the “Abortion Industy” generated over $487 million dollars of revenue in 2000. So do you think a “business” that pulls in a HALF A BILLION A YEAR will protect its financial interests? Or are they “pro-choice” because they are altruistic about “women’s rights?”
CJ
Mike:
When you can show that no medical procedure is performed for reasons other than money, you might start to be persuasive.
For example, those darned pediatricians see kids because they are paid! They’re in it for the money. Those money grubbing heart surgeons don’t care if someone recovers, so long as their insurance pays out. And what about those awful obstetricians? It’s horrible! They get paid to help mothers deliver their babies! The scum!
Being a doctor is, among other things, a job. Your half a billion dollars is peanuts to the medical industry and not at all worth the hassle they go through.
CJ
JG
‘The rhetoric over the bill isn’t nearly as infuriating as the rhetoric, authored by Sensenbrenner, over the amendments.’
Do you mean the way he changed the verbage of the amendments?
http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=774#more-774
‘Original Amendment: A Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state