Without Parental Notification, Abortion Harms Girls And Parents 
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by Eileen Roberts
October 20, 2005
LifeNews.com Note: Eileen Roberts is the founder of an organization dedicated to promoting parental notification. She learned firsthand the result of what happened when parents aren’t told of their daughters’ abortion and are forced to deal with the physical and emotional fallout. This article originally appeared in the Fredericksburg, Virginia newspaper.
On Nov. 30, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Ayotte v.
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, a case that will determine whether states can continue to require that a parent be notified before an abortion is performed on a minor daughter.
It is imperative that we pray for the decisions the Supreme Court will
be making on this case. I’ve been working since 1987 to help restore the rights of parents to be involved with their daughters’ abortion
decision. I’ve testified throughout the country in favor of parental
notification and consent legislation, as well as in Congress on the
interstate transportation of minors to other states in order to evade
the parental notification law in that particular state.
Parents are being excluded from this life-and-death decision, finding
out after the fact that an abortion has been performed. Parents are
being called to emergency rooms to sign consent forms to repair the
damage performed in legal abortion clinics.
Some of these so-called physicians do not even have medical degrees. Children do not know their complete medical histories–medical information that’s imperative to perform any type of surgery.
Please don’t get hung up on the horrible cases of girls who are from
abused homes, because what we do in this country is give these girls from abused homes secret abortions and send them back home to the abuser.
Child abuse is illegal; the abuse needs to be reported and counseling obtained for the child.
The case before the Supreme Court is not a case of abortion rights but a case of parental rights. Parental notification laws do not take away a woman’s right to an abortion; they simply protect our daughters from the harms of surgery. But more importantly, it allows parents to put their arms around their daughters and say, "I love you, and we’ll get through this together."
