When a Pennsylvania mother sent her 14-year-old daughter to the bus stop, as she did every school day, she had no idea her daughter was about to be pressured into a life-changing decision without her knowledge or consent.
At the urging — perhaps even coercion — of her boyfriend’s parents, the pregnant daughter decided to have an abortion. To skirt Pennsylvania’s parent-notification law, the boyfriend’s parents arranged for the 14-year-old Lancaster girl to go to New Jersey. There, the fetus was aborted as if it was business as usual.
Sadly, this is business as usual. Every day, hundreds of minors cross state lines — often with the cooperation or assistance of adults — to have secret abortions that would require parental notification at home.
People were interested in these podcasts
Efforts are under way to end the extralegal end run. The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (HR 748) would make it illegal to transport minors across state lines for abortions if the purpose is to evade parent notification laws. The subject of early March hearings before the House Judiciary Committee’s constitutional subcommittee, the legislation obviously is needed and long overdue.
Parents of the 14-year-old Pennsylvania girl were supportive and took great pains to assist their daughter when they earlier learned of her pregnancy. As the mother told Congress March 3, “My daughter chose to have the baby and raise it. My family fully supported my daughter’s decision to keep her baby and offered her our love and support.”
According to the mother’s congressional testimony, the decision didn’t sit well with the boyfriend’s family. They “began to harass my daughter and my family. They started showing up at our house to express their desire for my daughter to have an abortion. When that did not work, his grandmother started calling my daughter without my knowledge. They would tell her that if she kept the baby she couldn’t see her boyfriend again.” They even “threatened to move out of state.”
The girl’s family didn’t budge. “I told his family that my daughter had our full support in her decision to keep the baby. She also had the best doctors, counselors and professionals to help her through the pregnancy. We all had her best interests in mind.”
They knew, of course, that since their daughter was younger than 16, she couldn’t have an abortion without their consent. That’s what Pennsylvania law says. It didn’t occur to them that, behind their backs, their daughter might be whisked away to another state for an abortion.
“On Feb. 16, I sent my daughter to her bus stop with $2 of lunch money. I thought she was safe at school. She and her boyfriend even had a prenatal class scheduled after school.”
She never showed up, however. Instead, the boyfriend’s family arranged for the kids to travel by train to Philadelphia. From there, they took the subway to New Jersey. “That is where his family met the children and took them to the abortion clinic.”
When the 14-year-old girl “started to cry and have second thoughts, they told her they would leave her in New Jersey.
“They planned, paid for, coerced, harassed and threatened her into having an abortion,” the mother told Congress, and an abortion was performed that day. The girl’s parents were sickened and shocked when their daughter returned home sobbing and recounted the day’s events.
Thirty-four states have parental notification laws. Unfortunately, they are too often and easily circumvented and ignored, simply by going to another state.
The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act will provide families like the one described here with at least some assurance their state laws will be observed — by both their underage children and adults who might conspire with or pressure them to cross into another state for an abortion. Every night, the mother says the girl is brought to tears remembering her horrible experience in New Jersey.
Public opinion polls find Americans overwhelmingly support laws requiring parental involvement in the abortion decisions of minor girls. The support extends across all demographic categories: men and women, young and old, white, African-American and Hispanic.
Let’s hope Congress passes the proposed legislation expeditiously, so other families don’t have to face the tragedy that continues to haunt one Pennsylvania family.
Alvin Williams is president and chief executive officer of Black America’s Political Action Committee (BAMPAC).
Please read our comment policy before commenting.