Maine Senate rejects abortion notice bill

AUGUSTA – A Hampden state senator staged a losing one-woman debate Wednesday night in an attempt to convince the Maine Senate that parents should be consulted before abortions are performed on their minor children.

Following the lead of the Maine House, which rejected LD 1575 Tuesday, the Senate voted 21-14 against the measure which included a fiscal note of $241,000 for court-related expenses associated with any resulting judicial review and appeal of a minor’s court-approved abortion.

Sen. Debra D. Plowman, R-Hampden, told her seatmates that “as a woman and a mother,” she would want to know if one of her daughters was ever going to seek an abortion.

“And so do most Mainers according to recent polls,” she said. “They would want to know that something that’s going to change their daughter’s life is happening.”

Plowman said that under current law, children are being asked to make abortion decisions as if they were adults and that they are not capable of dealing with pregnancy issues without the guidance of an adult, “preferably a parent.” In 2002, she said, 198 girls between the ages of 10 and 17 sought abortions in Maine.

“If you take out the 60 percent who involved their parents, you’ve got 80 young women who are making the decision on their own,” she said. “They are children making adult decisions.”

Plowman said girls under 18 may be escorted to abortion clinics by family planning advocates who would require the child to buckle her seat belt for the trip to the clinic, “because she’s not old enough to make that decision herself.

“The person in charge is telling her what’s good for her,” Plowman said. “That girl is going to go home and try to tell what’s happened to her and she’s going to deal with it on her own because the person who takes her [to the clinic] isn’t taking her home and tucking her in bed that night and giving her two Tylenol. … This isn’t about reproductive freedom – it’s about caring for the whole child.”

Another bill, LD 25, which would have required a physician to counsel a woman seeking an abortion 24 hours before the procedure took place, was also defeated 24-11 in the Senate after it was defeated 91-55 Tuesday in the House. Another abortion-related bill, LD 1512, was deferred for further action later this week.