[Grovenet] Paul Loeb's latest

[Eric Canon]

I'm on Paul Loeb's email list, and, from time to
time, he sends out articles he's written and
wants to share. Here's one on the bill to
criminalize abortion across state lines brought
to us by the Republican Party and their
congressional members. This is more election year
politics, like the presidents remarks on
terrorism, meant to energize the base. But it is
especially troubling. Read what Mr Loeb has to
say here:


Here's my latest article on the Senate and House 
bills that would
criminalize assisting a minor to get an abortion 
across state lines without
parental consent. I write fairly rarely on 
abortion, and have people I
respect on the other side (and to people just 
added to my list, not all my
pieces hit such politically polarized subjects), 
but this bill really does
disturb me.

If you find it useful, do pass it on, post it or 
reprint it.
PL



>From Huffington Post

THE FUGITIVE GIRL ACT
By Paul Rogat Loeb

Do you remember the Fugitive Slave Act? It 
criminalized not only slaves
who'd escaped to non-slave states, but also 
anyone who helped them flee.
That law has troubling echoes in a new bill, 
passed by the Republican Senate
and House, that will make it illegal to transport

a girl from a state
requiring parental consent to get an abortion in 
another one.

The Fugitive Slave Act forced individuals who did

not believe in slavery to
collaborate in maintaining it. In states that had

banned slavery, it
compelled law enforcement officials to return 
escaped slaves to their
masters, and coerced ordinary citizens into 
supporting this process. It
isolated slaves from outside assistance, by 
threatening to imprison anyone
who would help them escape.

Isolation is also the goal of the benignly named 
Child Custody Protection
Act, which will become law if the House and 
Senate work out their
differences. It targets girls who already feel 
they cannot talk to their
parents without risking disaster. It leaves them 
on their own, because those
who might have tried to help them will face jail 
if they do. Whether a
sister, an aunt, a grandmother, counselor, or 
friend, anyone could be
imprisoned for intervening to help. Meanwhile, 
the same Senators who backed
it voted down an amendment that would have 
increased support for programs
offering contraception and sex 
education--including abstinence education.
Minors are also excluded from the FDA's recent 
ruling allowing
non-prescription sales of the "Plan B" 
morning-after pill, so the goal seems
to be less to prevent teen pregnancies than to 
punish them.

The House version goes further still, allowing 
parents to sue doctors who
perform these out-of-state abortions. Both bills 
let the states with the
harshest anti-abortion laws (and the least social

support for women with
children) control the actions of citizens in 
states with fewer restraints.
They trample core federalist traditions, letting 
states with the most
draconian laws impose their will on others. They 
even raise the prospect of
similar federal or state laws prohibiting adult 
women from traveling to
overcome state abortion bans-like a bill now 
pending in the Ohio House that
bans abortion without exception, while making it 
illegal to transport or
help women of any age to receive abortions in 
other states. This would seem
to violate numerous judicial decisions affirming 
the right to travel and
prohibiting one state from unilaterally extending

its laws to another. But
with Bush's recent court appointments, all sorts 
of longstanding precedents
risk being subordinated to a hard-right ideology.

There are people I respect who believe in 
required parental notification:
Even minor medical procedures require parental 
consent; parents should be
involved in the most consequential decisions of 
their children's lives; who
wouldn't want to talk with their daughter about a

choice this fundamental to
her future? Those who see abortion as murder view

the new prohibitions as a
way to reduce their toll and protect young women 
from a morally destructive
act. They see themselves as the new 
abolitionists.

But to me these arguments abstract the actual 
lives of the young girls who
are pregnant. We need to do everything we can to 
encourage our children to
talk with us about all kinds of difficult 
choices. But we're not talking
about idealized families where trust and harmony 
prevails. We're talking
about situations where trust has broken down to 
the point where a girl fears
to tell her parents that she's pregnant. The 
reason could be physical
violence, incest, or pervasive verbal abuse. It 
could be a tone of
unremitting judgment that makes a girl fear 
condemnation no matter what
choice she makes. It could simply be the 
certainty that her parents will
force her to have a child for which she is 
unready.

Even where families are close, life can be 
complicated. I once met a woman
who'd gotten pregnant and had an abortion at age 
15. Like many teenagers who
consider themselves invulnerable, she just hadn't

thought it would happen.
Her father had recently died and her mother was 
still distraught from the
loss. Given her mother's situation, the girl felt

she couldn't tell her
about the choice she was making, and didn't until

two years later when a
condom failed and she had another abortion. The 
second time felt harder, but
she told her mother this time, who supported her 
decision. She later felt
ready to have her two daughters--"the girls God 
intended me to have."

Even though parents would often prefer that they 
wait, nearly two thirds of
American teenagers will have had intercourse by 
their senior year of high
school, and many when they're considerably 
younger. Because some will be
clueless, others careless, and others just 
unlucky, more than a few will get
pregnant, particularly where birth control and 
sex education are less
accessible. Of the third of all U.S women who 
have abortions by age 45, 27
percent are Catholic (Catholics are 22 percent of

the population) and 13
percent evangelical Protestants (who are 39 
percent of the population). The
communities most resistant to abortion are 
themselves not exempt from the
choice. Although highly traditionalist parents 
often end up supporting their
own daughters' abortions when no other good 
choices exist, young women from
these communities aren't foolish to fear anger 
and ostracism.

The Fugitive Slave Act sought to isolate slaves 
through legal threats
against their would-be emancipators, including 
those who'd help them once
they'd reached so-called "free states." Escaped 
slaves were not even allowed
to argue their story in court. The Child Custody 
Protection Act would erect
similar walls around the lives of the young women

it targets, silencing
their voices and overriding their choices.  In 
the name of honoring the
primal community of the family, the act would 
isolate young women from all
other possible supportive communities who might 
advise or help them to not
have a child before they were ready. More than 
anything the law is about
control. Not the reasonable control by which we 
as parents stop our children
from touching a hot stove or running into the 
street, but a more insidious
control by which we would force them to bear 
children when they're
unwilling. A new generation of young women will 
have to live in the cage of
this imposed choice for the rest of their lives. 
Their children will bear
the burden of resentment. This new law now 
extends that cage throughout the
country, and, by making criminals of those who 
would help, will require the
rest of us to participate in maintaining it.


Figures on youth sexual activity from:
http://www.kff.org/youthhivstds/upload/U-S-Teen-Sexual-Activity-Fact-Sheet.p
df#search=%22percentage%20of%20sexually%20active%20teenagers%22

Demographics of women having abortions from
http://www.prochoice.org/pubs_research/publications/downloads/about_abortion
/women_who_have_abortions.pdf