NVRTL Press Release on Parental Notification Bill 2015

Nevada Right to Life is running a FB campaign on parental notification.  Here's a press release from NVRTL Executive Direct Melissa Clement back in 2015 when there was a bill in the NV legislature (AB 405) to require parental notification for abortion.  Check out the campaign by clicking here.  Here's the old release.

News Release

Nevada Needs Parental Notification Bill (AB 405)

Requires Abortion Clinics Notify One Parent 48 Hours Before Abortion

For Immediate Release April 16, 2015

The following statement can be attributed to Nevada Right to Life President Melissa Clement.

In Nevada, a girl under age 18 can’t get a cavity filled or an aspirin dispensed by the school nurse without a parent knowing. But a doctor can perform an abortion on a young girl without INFORMING a parent. Abortion is a surgical procedure involving anesthesia and having the potential to cause life-long and sometimes life-ending consequences. 

• Parental notification laws - like AB405 - provide common-sense protection for teen and pre-teen girls.

• It is an undisputed fact that adolescents develop physically before fully maturing psychologically. They simply cannot make decisions that fully consider future consequences AND rarely know their full medical history. In fact, what physician would consider an unemancipated underage girl capable of giving true informed consent?
• A teen’s parent is her biggest advocate and her best protector.
• A teen’s parent has important medical information about the teen – often information the teen doesn’t know or won’t remember during a crisis.
• A majority of Americans support parental involvement. A 2011 Gallup poll found 71% of Americans – including 72% of women and 61% of Democrats – favor PARENTAL CONSENT laws, a higher standard than Nevada is considering.
•  PREDATORS and SEX TRAFFICKERS exploit young girls and use secret abortions to cover up their crimes.
• A majority of states already have parental involvement laws in place. With nearly three decades of real life experience in these states we know these laws have caused real reductions in teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and a marked decrease in teen abortion.
• Why should parents expect profit-making abortion clinics to have their daughter’s best interest at heart?
• Why does this procedure enjoy an exemption from common-place informed consent standards?
• A middle school or high school girl can’t get an over the counter medication like tylenol or benadryl at school without parental PERMISSION, yet she can get a surgical abortion without a parent KNOWING about it.
• How can a parent provide proper and necessary pre- and post-abortion medical care, if they are completely unaware of the procedure? They are not even able to choose the doctor who would provide the best care.
• In the rare case of possible parental abuse, AB405 provides for a judicial bypass and provides an exemption for medical emergencies.

AB 405 passed out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee last Friday on a party line vote.  Assembly Judiciary Chairman Ira Hansen and the Republican Assembly Caucus saved it from certain death in the Health and Human Services Committee.  The bill must be voted on by Tuesday April 21, 2015.

AB 405 is necessary to protect Nevada girls seeking an abortion.  Abortion is an invasive surgical procedure with lifelong physical, emotional/psychological and spiritual consequences.  No other surgical or medical procedure grants children the ability to provide informed consent without a parent being notified. In Nevada, boys are guaranteed parental involvement in all medical decisions. Why not girls?  

In Nevada a minor cannot get a tattoo without parental CONSENT. A minor cannot use a tanning booth, with or without parental consent.  Minors cannot miss school or go to R rated movies without parental involvement.  While Nevada law rightly requires these common sense requirements to protect a child’s health and wellbeing, it is appalling that Nevada law does not require parental notification before their teen and preteen daughters can have an abortion.  Parents should be involved in ALL medical decisions.

AB 405 insures parents the right to counsel with their underage daughter before she decides to have an abortion.  It does not allow them to stop an abortion. A parent has the responsibility to ensure the best possible care for their daughter. Before the abortion, it includes helping her choose the best doctor, not the corner chop shop. After the abortion, ensuring she receives any post operative care and follow-up. Considering the nature of the abortion procedure and the consequences, parents need to know.  They have a fundamental right to know.  The child needs the parents to know.  

Predators and sex traffickers use abortion clinics to cover up and continue their sexual crimes against teen and preteen girls.  

Parents are also needed because abortion clinics can’t be trusted to look out for their child’s interests.  So called counselors are more likely to be a salesperson who stands to benefit from selling her an abortion, not someone qualified and competent to counsel her.  Too many abortion clinic workers are unqualified to be working in a medical facility.  And too many times the abortionist is really the bottom of the barrel doctor.  Abortion doctors like Kermit Gosnell who ran a filthy clinic at which he maimed and killed women are too common in our country.  Only a police investigation stopped Gosnell, not the abortion industry which knew all about him and which would even refer clients to him.  The abortion industry cannot be trusted to protect teen and preteen girls nor to look out for their best interests.  

Much has been said that laws like this can’t legislate parent child relationships, however the law should be neutral. Currently, parents are CUT OUT of this important decision during what is most-likely the greatest crisis their daughter has ever faced. Should this 12 or 13 or even 17 year old bear the burden herself? Much has also been made that good teens with good parents always tell their parents everything. Teens do not want to disappoint their parents - whether it is a bad grade, failing to take birth control consistently, or pregnancy - teens will search for the easy way out. We all did. They all do. 

Society rightly holds parents responsible for their children’s well-being, especially their health care.  No one has the best interests of the child at heart like her parents.  Parents cannot fully exercise their responsibility to care for their child’s welfare if they don’t know.  Opposing this law deprives parents of their authority to be responsible.  It abandons girls to those who stand to gain from her abortion.  To withhold information from them is offensive and says that says that parents are not competent to protect their children and cannot be trusted when it comes to their girls’ pregnancies and abortion. Abortion politics should not get in the way of protecting pregnant teen and preteen girls.  They are not expendable for political purposes. 

It’s time to pass AB 405.  It is long overdue.

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Nevada Right to Life is the state affiliate of the National Right to Life Committee, the federation of 50 state right-to-life affiliates and more than 3,000 local chapters, the nation’s oldest and largest grassroots pro-life organization.