The offense section of HR748 reads as such:
Quote:
(1) GENERALLY- Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly transports a minor across a State line, with the intent that such minor obtain an abortion, and thereby in fact abridges the right of a parent under a law requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision, in force in the State where the minor resides, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
(2) DEFINITION- For the purposes of this subsection, an abridgement of the right of a parent occurs if an abortion is performed or induced on the minor, in a State other than the State where the minor resides, without the parental consent or notification, or the judicial authorization, that would have been required by that law had the abortion been performed in the State where the minor resides.
|
So this law prohibits anyone except a parent from taking a minor across state lines to get an abortion
only if the state the minor resides in has a parental consent law in place.
The idea behind parental consent laws was for 2 reasons. 1)Sexauly active minors would get abortions and their parents would never know they had been sexualy active. 2)Sex offenders known to the minor (such as grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, godparents and whomever else) would take minors across state lines to have an abortion. Thus the parents would never know about the offense.
Allowing anyone other than the parent to make this choice is insane. What if the person that molested your daughter was your step-father, your daughters grandfather, these amendments would allow him to take your daughter across state lines and get an abortion and you would never know. How would you feel then?
All the people listed in the article have the potential to be sexual preditors and excluding them from prosecution of getting your daughter an abortion you had no knowledge of is not right. You are responsible for the safety and well being of your child. What would happen if your daugheter had complications during the abortion and died? How can you provide safety if you don't know what's going on?
What's that you say? This is just infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens. Funny, the dems don't seem to feel that way about gun control, but that's for another thread. The analogy is the same though. As you may feel republicans "lied" about these amendments, many republicans feel the same about democrats when democrats talk about gun control. It's politics as usual.
And every single one of us in here knows that if the shoe were on the other foot, each of our stances would be 180 degrees different than our current one.