Measure Requiring Parental Consent for Abortion Fails in Texas House; Senate Committee Approves Similar Bill

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 18 May 2005 - 1:00 PDT

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The Texas House on Thursday failed to approve a measure... (HB 1212) that would have required parental consent for minors seeking abortion in the state, the Houston Chronicle reports. However, the Senate State Affairs Committee hours later unanimously approved a similar bill (SB 1150) to require abortion parental consent (Ross Hughes/Gilbert, Houston Chronicle, 5/13). The House measure would have required abortion providers to gain parental consent before performing the procedure on a minor but would have allowed minors to obtain a judicial bypass to avoid parental consent. The measure also would have made it a crime for parents or any other person to force a minor to undergo an abortion. Under current state law, parents of minors seeking abortion must be notified 48 hours before the procedure (Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report, 5/12). The full state House never debated the legislation because one of the witness forms for testimony before the House State Affairs Committee did not include the committee name, as is required. In order to fix the mistake, the bill would have to have been sent back to the committee, but the House deadline for voting on bills from committees was May 9 (Martinez, Austin American-Statesman, 5/13). The state Senate legislation is a "bare-bones alternative" to the House bill and simply changes the word "notification" to "consent" in the state law, the Dallas Morning News reports. The remainder of the current law -- which charges physicians with a misdemeanor for violating the law but does not allow charges to be brought against minors undergoing the procedure -- would remain the same (Brooks, Dallas Morning News, 5/12). The state Senate bill also allows girls to seek a judicial bypass to avoid involving their parents in their decision to seek abortion (Grissom, AP/Plainview Daily Herald, 5/12).

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