Texas Lawsuit Says Abortion Business Violated Parental Notification Law
by Maria Gallagher
LifeNews.com Staff Writer
April 5, 2004
Houston, TX (LifeNews.com) — A ground-breaking case in Texas is putting the Lone Star State’s parental notice law to the test. Legal experts say the case, which will go to trial in Houston, could have repercussions for the way abortion centers do business nationwide.
Cherise Mosley and her father Frederick filed suit in 2002, saying a Texas abortion facility had violated state law by performing an abortion on Cherise without properly notifying her parents. Cherise was just weeks away from her 18th birthday when Douglas Karpen performed the abortion at Aaron’s Family Planning Center.
Cherise, who is now the mother of two, told television station KTRK, "I was scared and not thinking straight and I wish I would have had someone to have that concern to contact my family. Things would have probably been a lot different."
Mosley presented fake identification to obtain the abortion. A lawyer for the abortion practitioner says the case should be dismissed because the girl committed fraud in using the fake I.D.
But Elizabeth Graham of Texas Right to Life says abortion facility staffers should have verified the girl’s identity — and notified her parents — before performing the abortion.
"The clinic did not even properly verify that the identification was valid," Graham said. "The clinic worker carelessly glanced at the card issued by a supermarket, which manifests the wanton, cavalier attitude of abortionists toward the law."
Graham noted that Texas lawmakers wanted to make sure that parents or legal guardians were notified whenever a teenage girl tried to obtain an abortion.
"The 1999 Texas Parental Notification Act was passed and signed by Governor Bush to protect young girls and to strengthen Texas families. This clinic clearly violated that law," Graham said.
An attorney for the Mosleys, Jared Woodfill, told the Houston Chronicle newspaper, "The point of the statute is to open up lines of communication between parent and child. If her parents had known she was pregnant they said they would’ve encouraged her to have the child. And she has said that if she had known her parents felt that way she would’ve had the child."
According to pro-life advocates, the legal case is yet one more piece of evidence showing that abortion businesses care more about profits than the health and safety of teenage girls.
"This case demonstrates that the sole interest of the abortion industry is to sell abortions, regardless of the mother’s age or emotional or physical health," Graham said.
Pro-life leaders also note that abortion centers routinely violate commonly accepted medical practices in an effort to expedite abortions.
Female patients are quickly herded into abortion centers–often with little understanding of the potential health and fertility risks associated with abortion.
"The current climate of medical practice requires mountains of paperwork from both doctors and patients," Graham explained. "To simply provide a virtually ‘anonymous’ abortion–which is what happened here to this minor–tremendously endangers the health of women."
Related web sites:
Texas Right to Life – https://www.texasrighttolife.com
