Parental consent abortion bill is back
State GOP lawmakers push for move that would affect pregnant girls younger than 18
TALLAHASSEE — The almost annual partisan fight over abortion returned to the Florida Capitol on Tuesday, as GOP lawmakers pushed to require parental consent before a minor can receive an abortion.
On a party-line vote, a House panel voted 12-5 for HB 265, which would require pregnant girls under age 18 to receive the consent of a parent or legal guardian before getting an abortion.
The Florida Supreme Court has previously struck down a law requiring parental consent. In 2004 Florida voters approved a ballot measure requiring notification — but not permission — before a minor can receive an abortion.
Conservative groups and activists like John Stemberger, president of the Orlandobased Florida Family Policy Council, has said the expansive privacy rights provisions in the Florida Constitution have been misapplied by the courts to abortion rights. Stemberger was on hand Tuesday to support the bill.
If the bill becomes law, it could face a different fate in court than the last parental consent law, which was passed by the Legislature in 1988 but struck down by the high court.
Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed three conservatives to the state’s high court soon after taking office in January, re
placing three liberal justices who had hit the mandatory retirement age, flipping the balance of the court from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 6-1 conservative court.
Rep. Erin Grall, sponsor of HB 265, said notification isn’t strong enough, and parents need to be more involved in a decision to terminate a pregnancy. She criticized the current law as allowing notification to be done through the mail 72 hours before the procedure and claimed that means parents aren’t always given proper notice before their child undergoes an abortion.
“(Parents are) not really part of the process with notification,” Grall, RVero Beach, told reporters after the vote. “It doesn’t require any conversation between parent and child.”
Democrats, though, countered that notification was sufficient.
“This is a bill that is a solution in search of a problem,” said Rep. Nicholas Duran, D-Miami. “The framework currently in place right now provides us with the opportunity to seek medical counsel and move forward with it after involving your parent.”
Abortion rights activist groups and supporters slammed the measure as making it more difficult for girls, especially the victims of rape or incest or who have troubled relationships with their parents, to get access to a safe abortion, leaving them to seek dangerous alternatives.
“If a pregnant teen doesn’t want to have a child, she will find a way not to have one,” said Kara Gross, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.
Current law also allows for a minor to receive a waiver from the courts to get around the notification requirement. The waivers are granted by a judge if a minor can show the notification is not in their best interest or show evidence of child or sexual abuse by one or both parents.
The number of petitions for a waiver filed by minors in 2018 was 193, and 182 were granted, down from 224 filed and 205 granted the previous year, according to a House staff report on the bill.
Other parts of the bill would increase the penalty for an abortion provider who doesn’t provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion from a first-degree misdemeanor to a third-degree felony.
The vote in the House Health and Human Services committee had Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. It’s the same version of the bill that passed the House earlier this year, but which failed to gain traction in the Senate. Its next stop is the House floor, for the regular session that begins in January.
Grall said she’s “optimistic” the Senate will pass the bill when the Legislature convenes for a 60-day session starting Jan. 14.