Coat Hangers 11 - Parenal Consent Laws

 

 

Parental Consent Laws  Chapter 11

The law assumes an ideal family situation, ignoring all the other possible scenarios of why a girl might not be able to go to her parents, such as rape by the father.

For a minor to go to a judge can be beyond the capacity of many teens.

Parental consent laws for minors’ abortions became an issue after Roe v. Wade. I had debated not putting this chapter into the book because the book is about abortions prior to Roe v. Wade. However, unnecessary deaths occur because of continuing government interference in an individual’s womb.

In the late 1950s my best friend’s mother noticed that her daughter’s sanitary napkin box had not been used for over six weeks. She knew the girl was regular.

“Do you think you might be pregnant?” the mother asked. 

 

My friend broke down.

The mother took her daughter to a doctor and found no pregnancy. In today’s world, the doctor could have put her on the pill, installed an IUD or given her diaphragm. In the 50s these options were not available. Current attempts to limit access to birth control are still an issue today not just for minors but for adults by allowing companies to limit health insurance as a matter of religious belief or defunding Planned Parenthood.

A few months later my friend needed an abortion. She was deeply in love with the boy as only a teenage girl can be. Not only were they too young to marry, the boy took no responsibility for the pregnancy.

My friend had an illegal abortion and lived.

Her mother knew. Her father never did, because he would have opposed it. He was one of those men, although loving, that would think his daughter a virgin even after marriage and children.

My friend was lucky because of her mother’s support.

Not All Families Can Be Told

The law assumes an ideal family situation, ignoring all the other possible scenarios of why a girl might not be able to go to her parents, such as rape by the father. For a minor to go to a judge can be beyond the capacity of many teens.

Rebecca Suzanne Bell (1971-1988) was called Becky by her friends and family. She grew up in a middle-class neighborhood.

If she aborted herself or found someone to do it illegally, is still unclear. We know that she sought a legal abortion, but under Indiana state law she needed one of her parents to give permission.

Bell had choices:

        Going to Kentucky 100 miles away, which is what many local teens did

        Going before a judge

        Have the baby and give it up for adoption

        Run away to California

        Telling her parents

 

Fear and Fecal Matter in the Genital Track

According to her friend, Heather Clark, Bell feared that her parents would find out and that overwhelmed her fear of the abortion method she selected.

When Bell left the house in September 1988 she told her parents she was going to a party. It was the last time they would see her in a normal condition. She returned crying and ill. At first, she refused to see a doctor, but as she worsened, they forced her to go to their family doctor, who diagnosed pneumonia and sent her to the hospital where she died on 16 September.

She had developed sepsis as the result of an unsterile abortion, according to the coroner, who found fecal matter in her genital track. He stated the abortion was probably caused by a knitting needle or wire.

After her death, her parents, Bill and Karen Bell, found information on Kentucky abortion clinics among their daughter’s things.

Heather Clark, who was supportive of Becky, has stated she does not believe her friend self-induced.

The Family Fights for More Realistic Laws

The Bells blamed the parental consent laws for their daughter’s death. They have:

        Spoken against the laws in Colorado in 1988

        Testified before the Michigan House of Representatives Michigan in 2006

The Bells were attacked by pro-life groups, who disparaged Becky’s character and denied that she died from an abortion but a normal miscarriage. Dr. John Wilke produced an expert to challenge the autopsy, but the expert gave an opinion without seeing the autopsy report. On 60 Minutes, forensic pathologist John Pless, who had been associated with the autopsy, verified that Becky Bell had died from what was probably an illegal abortion.

HBO showed Lifestories: Families in Crisis “Public Law 106: The Becky Bell Story” on 15 August 1992.

In reaction to pro-life attacks, Karen Bell wrote in Choices: Women Speak Out About Abortion: “Bill and I decided to speak out; we thought we could prevent other girls from dying. We appeared on 60 Minutes. The anti-choice crowd came after us. They followed us. There would be crowds of people with their fetuses in a bottle, and some would say that Becky didn't die the way we said she did. They loosened the lug nuts on our car. In Arkansas, they shot a hole in the building where we were speaking. They cared more about a fetus than about my daughter. I thought, ‘I'm not afraid of anybody, because my daughter is dead and you can't hurt me anymore.’ People ask me what I would have done if Becky had told me the truth. I would have been mad, and I would have said, ‘Becky, you just ruined your life. What are the neighbors going to think?’ That would have been my first reaction because that's who I am. But then I would have asked her, ‘Beck, do you want to get married? Have a baby? Have an abortion? What do you want? What can you live with, hon?’ We would have worked it out. But I never got the chance.”