PRESS RELEASE
FROM THE OFFICE OF
Congressman Artur Davis
7th Congressional District of Alabama
208 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-0107 		image of U.S. Congress seal with capitol dome in the background
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 28, 2005
 

CONGRESSMAN DAVIS SUPPORTS

PARENTAL NOTIFICATIONS FOR ABORTIONS
 
WASHINGTON  --  U.S. Representative Artur Davis (D-Birmingham) this week voted in support of legislation seeking to protect children from crossing state lines to have abortions against their will or in order to evade parental notification laws in their states.

H.R. 748, the "Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act," (CIANA) makes it a federal crime for a person other than a parent to help a minor obtain an abortion in another state when the minor has not fulfilled all of the requirements of her home state’s parental notification laws, or for a doctor to perform an abortion on a minor from another state in violation of the minor's home-state parental-notification laws. The law is designed to protect young girls from being forced to have an abortion by older boyfriends or an abusive parent.

"I believe that if parental consent is required for basic surgery on minors, it should be required for a major procedure such as abortion," he said. "This bill will help prevent individuals from bypassing the parental notification laws in states like Alabama by going to another state."

Davis noted that some critics of the bill fear that it would require the children of abusive parents to reveal their pregnancy to such parents. Davis believes there are already appropriate legal safeguards to address that scenario.

Alabama is one of 23 states that have some form of parental notification law for minors attempting to have an abortion. Florida is the only state in the Southeast that does not have any notification law on the books. However, a child seeking an abortion there would have to comply with Alabama’s notification provisions before the procedure could take place.

In cases where the pregnancy may have been caused by an abusive parent, there are bypass measures in place that allow the minor to seek permission from a judge for an exemption for notification.

The bill is expected to go into effect the moment it is signed by the president. The crime would be punishable by a fine up to $100,000 and one year in prison.

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