Parental Notification

Parental Notification

This post on parental notification laws got me thinking. Most of the laws come with provisions for waivers, but it seems that the women who most need the waivers are the ones least likely to get them.

Young women in stable families and who have good relationships with their parents will not require legal coercion to inform them. For the most part, these laws are only relevant to young women in the worst family situations; there is no legitimate purpose fulfilled by forcing them to go through an intimidating process to waive parental consent requirements.

Furthermore, many judges are against abortions and so refuse to grant waivers under any circumstances.

My judge is anti-abortion, and he doesn't believe a child should have this done without her parents. You have the right to file, and the right to file in your initials; your name won't even be on the petition. But that doesn't mean he will grant it. We had one [case] one time ... and her doctor advised her to have an abortion for medical reasons, and [the judge] still would not grant it.

I think that parental notification laws are backdoor method of banning abortions for the people who probably need them most (young women).