Some parental notification laws include provisions that state that the parents have to be informed even in cases of medical necessity and before the procedure can occur. I always thought that, for the most part, teenage children can keep most medical information confidential from their parents if they want to.

In terms of insurance, I’ve looked it up before and I’m pretty certain that insurers don’t have to cover abortion on demand, only medical neccesity and possibly rape and incest.

..I’ll agree with you on the fetal homicide laws. I think it was more of a the-other-side-supports-so-we-must-oppose-it kind of deal. It would have been less controversial if the anti-abortion groups eren’t the ones pushing for it and a vaguely worded law could end up criminalizing abortions.

Both sides should support it. One side chooses not to, so that side is in a lousy position to complain about the law being controversial or their side having too little input. My theory is that most moderately pro-abortion/choice people have no problem with fetal homicide laws, but the extreme pro-abortionists do. By that, I mean the ones who refuse to admit that abortion raises any moral concerns whatsoever. After all, it makes no sense to treat the murder of a fetus like a murder, unless you think that there’s at least a chance that the fetus *might* be a human life worth protecting. And if it, then maybe women should think twice before killing it, either. This doesn’t have to lead to an anti-abortion result, however, as one could reasonably argue that the woman’s known rights trump the potential rights of a fetus who might not be human, while the same potential rights of that same fetus should trump the clearly nonexistent rights of an assailant. So it’s only a problem for those who are so pro abortion that they refuse to admit that anything gets killed.

I don’t buy the theory that any fetal homicide laws in existence, nor the one recently vetoed by Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, would have the effect of criminalizing abortion. Abortion rights are as safe in California as they are just about anywhere else, and have always been so, but Scott Peterson is still considered a double-murderer. Good.

Parental notification is an extreme pro-abortion issue, not a privacy issue. If it were really about a minor’s general “privacy” rights against his/her parents, the objection would to ALL parental notification requirements involving ALL medical procedures. Aside from cases of incest, abuse, etc., why should abortion be special?

I’m pretty sure that you’re wrong about HMOs, but I’m not positive about that so I’ll have to research the matter more thoroughly before responding to your question in full. The short answer is no, I don’t think HMOs should be allowed to withhold funding for abortions in the specific case where the mother’s life is in danger.

AFAIK, health plan laws are limited to life and health of the mother. Are you saying that health plans should be exempt from paying for things that will save the life or health of someone?

Parental notification is a privacy issue. PBA is good marketing and really not much more than that.

I don’t really have a problem with waiting periods and counseling, but the devil is in the details. There are cases where the life or health of the mother is at stake such that these things need to be waived. Laws that don’t allow for these exceptions have been struck down. So then you have the potential of an over-zealous prosecutor in a red area going after doctors every time they invoke one of these exemptions and then get a Christian doctor to testify that no abortion is ever needed to save the life or health of a mother with a jury from red areas, its a sure recipe for curtailing legal abortions.