New state law requires parental notification. Teenage girls getting abortions must get written permission
By Marjon Rostami
The Daily Texan Teenage girls seeking an abortion will have to comply with a new Texas law and gain parental consent. The law, which will go into effect Sept. 1, will take the place of a previous law that required only parental notification. Doctors must abide by the new law starting Thursday, but a state-approved parental consent form will not be available until February, leaving the specifics of how to comply with the law in question. The Texas State Board of Medical Examiners publishes a biannual newsletter informing physicians of any changes in policy and new laws. The fall newsletter publishes after the law goes in effect, and a vote on a proposed form is scheduled to take place at the quarterly meeting in February. Jill Wiggins, a spokeswoman for the board of examiners, said doctors are expected to keep up with the news and comply with the new law without a formal reminder. According to Wiggins, doctors will use a parental consent form from another procedure and modify it on their own to include abortion until state-approved forms are issued. Since spot checks are uncommon, the board relies on the patient to regulate the law. "We are complaint-driven," Wiggins said. "The way we regulate information is if we receive complaints that a doctor has violated the law in some way. When we do receive a complaint we do a complete investigation." She said she was "quite certain" no disciplinary action was ever taken against an abortion doctor in Texas under the parental notification law. Texas Right to Life Committee Inc., a group supporting the law, questions how the law will be enforced and why a deadline for the form was not already set. "The amendment clearly says a standard form has to be used, and if there is no standard form, I don't know if there is any way we can actually know," said Stacey Emick, the Texas Right to Life legislative director. "If it is implemented by having a girl bring in a written form with a forged signature, then I don't see how it is any different than parental notification." Emick said she hopes to see a form where a parent or legal guardian must be present to sign. "It is not my goal to put the girl in danger in situations where a girl cannot communicate effectively with her parents," she said. Since the bill was authored, NARAL Pro-Choice Texas has worked to change the focus of the legislature to pregnancy prevention. "It is unfortunate that the legislators spent time on this instead of a teen pregnancy prevention bill and be focused on preventing the girls and families to have to deal with this in the first place," said Sarah Wheat, NARAL Pro-Choice Texas executive director. She said since the state-approved form is not available, it is clear the law is more about pleasing a certain political constituency than it is about public health policy. "This shows that the legislators were out to score political points when the fact is that it is not even going to be implemented on time," Wheat said.
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