Goal is to end extralegal end run

By ALVIN WILLIAMS
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
When Marcia Carroll sent her 14-year-old daughter to the bus stop, as she did every school day, she had no idea her daughter was about to be pressured into a life-changing decision without her knowledge or consent.
At the urging of her boyfriend's parents, Carroll's pregnant daughter decided to have an abortion.
To skirt Pennsylvania's parent-notification law, the boyfriend's parents arranged for the girl to go to New Jersey. There, the fetus was aborted.
Sadly, this is business as usual. Every day, hundreds of minors cross state lines -- often with the cooperation or assistance of adults -- to have abortions that would require parental notification at home.
Efforts are now being made to end the extralegal end run. The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act would make it illegal to transport minors across state lines for abortions if the purpose of such transport is to evade parent notification laws. The subject of early March hearings before the House Judiciary Committee's constitutional subcommittee, the legislation obviously is needed and long overdue.
Marcia Carroll and her husband were supportive parents who took great pains to assist their daughter after they learned of her pregnancy. As Carroll told members of Congress on March 3, "My daughter chose to have the baby and raise it. My family fully supported my daughter's decision to keep her baby and offered her our love and support."
According to Carroll's congressional testimony, the decision didn't sit well with the family of their daughter's boyfriend. They "began to harass my daughter and my family. They started showing up at our house to express their desire for my daughter to have an abortion. When that did not work, his grandmother started calling my daughter without my knowledge. They would tell her that if she kept the baby she couldn't see her boyfriend again." They even "threatened to move out of state."
The Carrolls didn't budge. "I told his family that my daughter had our full support in her decision to keep the baby. She also had the best doctors, counselors and professionals to help her through the pregnancy. We all had her best interests in mind."
Crossing state lines
The Carrolls knew, of course, that since their daughter was younger than 16, she couldn't have an abortion without their consent. That's what Pennsylvania law says. It didn't occur to them that, behind their backs, their daughter might be whisked away to another state for an abortion.
"On February 16, I sent my daughter to her bus stop with $2 of lunch money. I thought she was safe at school. She and her boyfriend even had a prenatal class scheduled after school."
She never showed up, however. Instead, the boyfriend's family arranged for her and her boyfriend to travel by train to Philadelphia. From there, they took the subway to New Jersey. "That is where his family met the children and took them to the abortion clinic."
When her daughter "started to cry and have second thoughts, they told her they would leave her in New Jersey," Carroll told Congress. "They planned, paid for, coerced, harassed and threatened her into having an abortion."
The Carrolls were sickened and shocked when their daughter returned home sobbing and recounted the day's events.
Thirty-four states currently have parental notification laws. Unfortunately, they are too often and easily circumvented and ignored, simply by going to another state.
The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act will provide families like the Carrolls with at least some assurance that their state laws will be observed -- by both their underage children and adults who might conspire with, or pressure them to cross into another state for an abortion.
Every night, Marcia Carroll says, her young daughter is brought to tears as she remembers her experience in New Jersey.
According to public opinion polls, Americans overwhelmingly support laws requiring parental involvement in the abortion decisions of minor girls. The support extends across all demographic categories: men and women; young and old; white, black and Hispanic.
Let's hope Congress passes the proposed legislation expeditiously, so other families don't have to face the tragedy that continues to haunt the Carrolls.
X Alvin Williams is president and CEO of Black America's Political Action Committee, a conservative political action committee. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services