Kansas House Panel Considers Bill Protecting Teens on Abortion With ID

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Mar 7, 2007   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Kansas House Panel Considers Bill Protecting Teens on Abortion With ID Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 7
, 2007

Topeka, KS (LifeNews.com) — When a teenager gets an abortion in Kansas, state law currently requires the abortion practitioner to notify her parents and for an adult over the age of 21 to accompany her to the abortion center. However, abortion businesses are not required to check identification to make sure the law is followed.

On Tuesday, the state House Health & Human Services Committee held a hearing on the Teen Protection Act (HB 2292) that would correct that flaw.

The panel didn’t vote on the bill but is expected to do so later this week.

Members of the panel heard testimony from women who were coerced into abortions without parental involvement. The woman all said that pregnant minors need the involvement of their parents to make better decisions.

Linda Renken also had an abortion she deeply regrets and said the sound of a vacuum cleaner now haunts her because it makes a similar noise as the machine used to do the abortion.

Renken was coerced into a secret abortion and remembers being told by the clinic staff it’d be just like turning back the clock to when she wasn’t pregnant.

“They said I’d be fine and I’d forget all about it — but I never did," she told the legislators.

"I talk to women who have gone through it and the majority of them were taken to the clinics by boyfriends or just friends — not a parent," she added about her support for the bill. "And those parents, to this day — do not know about the abortion."

"Parents cannot be there to support them and love them afterwards because they didn’t even know about it," Renken added. "I am here to tell you we must make sure that parents are aware when their children are considering something as dangerous as an abortion.”

The bill enjoys the support of Kansans for Life, a statewide pro-life organization.

"Across the nation, predators or their associates, have manipulated similar provisions to ‘steer’ minors into unwanted abortions—sometimes to conceal prosecutable statutory rape," KFL legislative director Kathy Ostrowski told LifeNews.com in a press release.

"The need to protect vulnerable young women in abortion clinics has achieved higher public awareness due to high profile cases involving sexually abused teens in Wichita this past summer, and the nearly four year battle to prosecute abortion clinics for crimes," she added.

The state House approved a similar bill by a vote of 98-27 in the House last year.

Related web sites:
Kansas legislature – https://www.kslegislature.org
Kansans for Life – https://www.kfl.org