BILL UNDER CONSIDERATION BY GOVERNOR SCOTT COULD SUBJECT YOUNG WOMEN IN CRISIS TO ABUSE AT HOME AND DELAYS WHICH COULD ENDANGER THEIR HEALTH
May 13, 2011
CONTACT: ACLU of Florida Media Office, (786) 363-2737 or media@aclufl.org
MIAMI – The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida (ACLUFL) today warned that House Bill 1247 (HB1247) could endanger the health, safety and care of young women by restricting, delaying and intimidating those exercising their right to a “judicial bypass” of Florida’s parental notification requirements when seeking to terminate a pregnancy.
The changes in HB1247 dishonor the constitutional requirement that minors seeking to terminate a pregnancy be able to access a “confidential and expeditious” court waiver to a required parental notice in cases where specific standards are met. Those standards include situations where a judge finds parental notice is not in best interest of the applicant.
“This is not about a parent’s desire to know about these important issues – this is about our obligation to protect young people for whom telling a parent is real danger and when doing so would only make a tragic situation even worse,” said Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida. “Not every child has a loving, understanding home. Unfortunately this proposal lets those young women down.”
HB1247 forces a young woman to make her application for judicial assistance to be made in the judicial circuit in which she lives – an area about five times smaller than what current law allows. Limiting the area in which an application can be made keeps the process in or near the home community of the applicant and increases the risk that the applicant’s identity will be known.
Losing the right to remain anonymous will place more young women at risk of abuse, abandonment, neglect or other negative consequences – the very outcomes a young woman may have been seeking to avoid by using a judicial bypass.
Only North Dakota, requires that a bypass petition be filed in the home circuit of the applicant.
“Restricting a bypass request to your home town has only one purpose – to make it more likely someone will know you,” said Maria Kayanan, Associate Legal Director of ACLU of Florida. “If you’re seeking a judicial bypass because you’re not safe at home, restricting you to seeking help at home is clearly aimed at making the bypass process – and those it was designed to protect – less safe.”
Risking a woman’s confidentially by forcing her application to be made closer to home is not the only flaw in the bill. HB 1247 also risks the health of young women seeking a waiver from parental notice by needlessly expanding the time a judge has to rule on her application.
Within the constitutional requirement that the process be “confidential and expeditious,” current law requires a judge to rule on a petition within 48 hours. HB1247 layers on delays which taken together could extend the process to up to three weeks – complicating both the legal process and any subsequent medical procedure.
The bill also adds confusing and complicated new procedures and appeals processes to the existing method of seeking a bypass. As a result, some attorneys and advocates who assist young women in obtaining a bypass may choose to not engage a more complex maze of requirements – further denying access to the required bypass option.
“Judges have been reviewing bypass requests within 48 hours without incident since 2005,” Kayanan said. “The extension of time and added requirements are designed to stretch the bypass process out as long as possible and make it as unappealing as possible so people don’t bother – leaving the young women who need help the most to fend for themselves.”
The bill also adds new requirements that judges lecture women seeking a bypass. According to the bill, judges must ask questions of the applicant that determine if she “has the ability to assess both the immediate and long-range consequences of [her] choices.”
HB1247 also ties judges’ hands by adding another new provision which bars judges from considering the financial impacts of delivering, caring for and raising a child should she choose not to terminate her pregnancy. Which means a judge may not consider any inability to adequately or safely provide for child as a reason to grant a waiver of parental notice.
“This bill makes a mockery of the requirement that a young woman be guaranteed a bypass process that is confidential and expeditious,” Kayanan said. “It’s really a reprehensible attempt to punish young women by making a bypass more complex, take longer and be needlessly difficult and the real victims will be the young women who need this option for their own health and safety.”
HB1247 was approved by the House of Representatives on a 82-35 vote on April 27, 2011 and by the Senate on a 26-12 vote on May 5, 2011. It is awaiting action by Governor Scott.
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