Measure asks: To notify or not?

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

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If voters pass Measure 43 next month, Oregon would become the 36th state that requires doctors to notify or get the consent of parents before performing an abortion on any minor.

The initiative would require doctors to send a certified letter to parents 48 hours before performing an abortion on girls ages 15, 16 and 17. State law already requires parental notification when abortions are performed on girls 14 and younger.

State laws requiring parental notification or consent have been around since at least the 1970s. In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could impose such laws, but only if they included a provision in which a minor could ask a judge to waive the consent or notification requirement. Measure 43 includes such a provision.

Currently, 22 states require parental consent for minors to get an abortion, including two that require both parents' consent, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which studies sexual and reproductive health. The institute is named for a former president of Planned Parenthood.

Another 13 states require parental notification, including one that requires both parents to be notified. One state, Utah, requires both parental consent and notification. Eight other states have passed consent or notification laws that have been struck down by courts.

Only Oregon, Washington, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New York and Vermont have never passed laws requiring parental notification for all girls under age 18, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

"Most of these laws have been passed years ago," said Susan Cohen, government affairs director for the Guttmacher Institute. "There's no new boomlet going on."

Florida was the most recent state to enact a parental notification law earlier this year, and Oklahoma passed a parental notice last year. Such laws often get tied up in courts for years before they're enacted or thrown out.

In Oregon, voters rejected a parental notification initiative in 1990, 52 percent to 48 percent. The outcome of that measure may have been influenced by another initiative on the same ballot, which would have outlawed abortion and was soundly rejected by 68 percent of voters.

More recently, a parental consent bill passed both houses of the 1996 Legislature and was vetoed by Gov. John Kitzhaber, said Sarah Nashif, campaign manager for the Committee to Protect Our Teen Daughters, which is promoting Measure 43 this year.

In the last legislative session in 2005, the House passed a parental notification bill, but it died after not getting a hearing in the Senate, she said.

The most recent poll on Measure 43, conducted by Riley Research between Sept. 20 and 29 with 471 likely voters, found the initiative leading with 51 percent of respondents in favor, 31 percent opposed and 18 percent undecided. The poll had a margin of error of 4.4 percent.