Abortion bill crumbles in House. For second time in week, parental consent legislation takes hit on technicality
By Michelle M. Martinez
American-Stateman Staff
A proposal to require unmarried minors to have parental consent before getting an abortion collapsed on the House floor before debate ever started Thursday. Critics said the bill would have targeted judges who allowed Texas minors to bypass the requirement. But, in the end, the proposal was done in by a technical glitch.
The problem: One out of the more than 1,000 witness forms collected from people who testified on House Bill 1212 in the House State Affairs Committee did not include the name of the committee, as required. To fix the error would have required that the bill be sent back to State Affairs, but the deadline for voting House bills out of committee was Monday. House members haven't necessarily seen the last of parental consent legislation. The Senate State Affairs Committee voted out a similar bill — Senate Bill 1150 by Sen. Chris Harris, R-Arlington — Thursday evening. "If the Senate can get something out, then we've still got (time) to hear Senate bills," said Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, the bill's sponsor. "We could sure rock and roll on it. We had the votes on the floor. Joe Pojman, executive director of the pro-life Texas Alliance for Life, said he was disappointed but optimistic. "I think it's always disappointing when a bill that has tremendous support from the public, and a bill which really addresses a very serious need, is not debated on the House floor, but is killed for technical reasons," he said. "We're not dead yet; the Senate companion has begun to move." King's bill would have required doctors who perform abortions to have a parent or guardian's written consent before performing the procedure. Girls would have been able to apply for a confidential judicial bypass — or a waiver of the consent law — in their home county or the county where they planned to have the abortion. Under current Texas law, unmarried minors only have to notify a parent or guardian that they plan to have an abortion and not receive consent. If they think doing so would lead to harm, they can ask a judge in any county to grant them permission to get the abortion anyway. The bill also would have required the state to publish, annually, information submitted by courts that hear waiver requests, including how many waivers were granted in each of nine judicial regions. Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, said the bill doesn't take into consideration minors who don't come from traditional or loving homes. He had planned to file an amendment that would have exempted orphans and minors who are already parents from obtaining consent. "I think there was a big sigh of relief that this legislation is not leaving this chamber," said Villarreal, who filed a parental consent bill with fewer restrictions that went nowhere this session. "This is legislation that goes after orphans and judges. It goes after minors that are living in abusive households, minors that are living with grandma who doesn't have legal guardianship." Villarreal also criticized the requirement to publish judicial information each year, a provision that worried pro-life groups such as NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. Sarah Wheat, spokeswoman for organization, said people could use the information to try to get judges who grant waivers of the law out of office. Even if the information reported isn't broken down by county, it wouldn't be difficult to figure out which judges in rural areas handled the cases, she said. "You're putting judges in the position of choosing between following the law or meeting a political agenda," Wheat said. She was also worried that a provision requiring judges to use a tougher standard in deciding whether to grant a consent waiver would have "posed a serious challenge" for girls who fear telling their parents that they are pregnant would lead to abuse. Pojman, whose group worked with King on the bill, says parental consent would allow parents to stop an abortion from being performed on their daughters, would continue the decrease in abortion, pregnancy and birth rates for minors and deter adult sexual predators who prey on minors. As of February, 73 House members had signed on as co-sponsors to King's bill, including Austin Republican Reps. Todd Baxter and Terry Keel. Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, and Mike Krusee, R-Round Rock, also supported the bill. Gov. Rick Perry said earlier this session that he would sign a parental consent bill without delay. On the House floor Thursday, King knew one of his colleagues would be raising the technical mistake and decided to acknowledge the problem first. "Our rules require strict compliance with all House and constitutional procedures, and there's no margin for error," King said after the bill died. HB 1212 had escaped a near-death Tuesday, after Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, pointed out that the bill incorrectly listed a co-sponsor. Coleman's intent was to kill the bill by kicking it back to State Affairs on the technical error, but House Speaker Tom Craddick instead returned it to the chief clerk's office for correction. King said his bill would have prevented doctors who perform abortions from side-stepping parents. "We don't let doctor's operate on our kids. We don't let our kids marry. We don't let them join the military. We don't let them quit school. We don't let them smoke. We don't let them drink. We don't even let them get a tatoo without a parent's consent," King said. "We don't let them get any other medical procedure at all without a parent's consent, except abortion. And that's just wrong."
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