Planned Parenthood The Head of the ABORTION Snake

Parental Notification Law would protect the rights of parents

By the Rev. John J. Vondras

In 1976 the New York State Senate and Assembly both passed a parental consent bill, which recognized the right of parents to be consulted before a surgical procedure as radical as abortion could be performed on their daughter. The bill was vetoed by the governor, who anticipated a negative ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the bill was constitutional, but the veto set the stage for a major assault on parents rights in regards to teen-age abortions.

At present, a teenager can leave a public school class and submit to an abortion without her parents family physician or even her own medical records being consulted.

At the same time, the parents are legally and financially responsible for the outcome of the abortion and the costs involved.

Each year almost 1,000 teen-age abortions are performed in Westchester County, the fifth highest in the state outside of New York City. Most of these pregnancies are caused by promiscuity and reliance on so-called "safe sex" devices.

In states where parental involvement bills have been implemented there has been a dramatic decline in teen-age pregnancies and abortions.

Since abortion advocacy groups such as Planned Parenthood began receiving public funding for their programs, we have seen an almost 400 percent in the number of abortions in New York state.

It is obvious these programs, which establish abortionists and Planned Parenthood as moral agents, simply do no work.

Lately, the issue has been obscured by an abnormal emphasis on dysfunctional families, which are the exception rather than the rule. Parents who have dedicated their lives to raising their children are being penalized and stigmatized by unjust laws which place a barrier between them and their children by asserting that no parent has The ability to properly counsel their own daughters. Our children deserve the very best society, the very best upbringing and the very best protection of their interests and this can be done only-by eliminating faulty and poorly thought out laws and restoring the rights of parents to be involved in critical medicine decisions.

The current bill in Albany is a parent notification bill that helps repair the damage done to family life in New York by the 1976 veto, which that governor has since called his worst mistake in office.

Abortion is legal but it is not safe, it poses a threat to the physical and psychological health of the mother and is designed to destroy the life of the child.

The professional abortionists who are targeted to receive almost $30,000,000 in New York taxpayers money this year are not liable for the death of the baby or the post-abortion syndrome of the mother. Their liability is limited. to cases like Dawn Ravenall, a 13-year-oLd Queens student whose parents learned of their daughter's abortion only after she died as a result of the procedure. 

The writer is associate director for pro- life activities for the Archdiocese of New York.

Parents who have dedicated their lives to raising their children are being penalized and stigmatized by unjust laws asserting that no parent has the ability to properly counsel their own daughters.