A Bogus Argument

From Today’s Washington Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confidants like grandparents or ministers who help pregnant teens should be protected from prosecution under a bill headed for Senate passage that would punish anyone who takes girls across state lines to end their pregnancies, Democrats said Tuesday.

“We should not criminalize the grandparents or clergy members to whom a teen in trouble might turn for help,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who plans to introduce an amendment to protect such confidants from prosecution…

Opponents of the bill say it would cut off an escape route for pregnant teens with abusive parents who live in the states with parental consent or notification laws.

The justification for this amendment is entirely fallacious. You cannot get a parental consent/notification law passed and have it sustained without a judicial bypass provision, where a child can go to a judge to bypass the requirement in cases like this.

What the dems are seeking to do is to make any relative or minister able to unilaterally decide to override the decision of parents without a hearing from a judge. The idea of exempting relatives from the provision of the bill sets up a neat way for an uncle who commits incest to hide the evidence without the parents knowing.

Linked to Outside the Beltway and Basil’s Blog

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