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For the week of Feb. 2 through Feb. 8, 2000

Psychological nightmare


The Idaho Legislature is a psychological nightmare. Talk about a complex collection of contradictions.

As a body composed primarily of middle-class males, the Legislature is peculiarly fixated on the bodies of teenage girls? It would fascinate Sigmund Freud.

For two years now, the Legislature has tried to enact a law that requires parental consent before a teenage girl may receive an abortion. If for some reason parental consent cannot be secured, the girl may seek court approval.

Former Idaho Gov. Phil Batt wisely vetoed such a bill.

Unlike his predecessor, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne has guaranteed the Legislature he will sign a parental consent bill this year.

We don’t get it.

With Senate Bill 1277, the same legislators who put Department of Health and Welfare administrators through a special Budget Hell every year will put up roadblocks that may force children to bear children—even though it’s likely both mother and child will end up on the state’s welfare rolls?

The same legislators who rail against federal control of federal lands within Idaho will make it OK for the state to force its way into the privacy of the family.

The same legislators—who as parents themselves know better—will assume a teenage girl will consult Idaho law when deciding whether to tell mommy or daddy she is pregnant?

These legislators are suffering some serious delusions.

Supporters say the law will improve parent-child communication—even if communication is poor to begin with.

They seem to believe a girl living with abusive parents will have enough information, legal resources and money to seek a court order to allow her to get an abortion.

They see no contradiction in railing against governmental red tape on one hand, but imposing burdensome abortion-reporting and parental notification requirements on busy doctors with the other.

The bill will do nothing to improve family communication.

It will do nothing to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

It will do nothing to improve the lives of single teenage moms and their offspring.

It will make obtaining an abortion more difficult. It will increase the likelihood that pregnant teenagers will put their lives at risk in the hands of unskilled abortionists.

It will punish pregnant teenage girls in difficult family situations. Then again, perhaps this is the point after all--eh, Dr. Freud?

 

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