Posted on 07/07/2007 8:24:52 PM PDT by monomaniac
At a time when Manchester state Rep. John W. Thompson is seeking middle ground on the emotionally charged issue of whether an underage girl should have to tell a parent before getting an abortion, the case of a runaway found in West Hartford has added volatility to the debate.
During a June 6 search of the West Hartford home of dog trainer Adam P. Gault, 41, police discovered the runaway, Danielle Cramer, 15, in a hidden storage space under a set of stairs. Cramer had been missing from her mother's Bloomfield home for almost a year
The case has drawn international media attention.
In a court document made public last week, two police detectives said Cramer disclosed after she was found that "she recently had an abortion at Planned Parenthood in West Hartford but would not disclose who the father was."
Cramer added, however, that Ann Murphy, described by the detectives as Gault's longtime girlfriend, "would be really mad if she found out," according to the document.
The list of property seized by police during the search includes "abortion paperwork."
Those disclosures raise the possibility that a 15-year-old runaway was the victim of a statutory rape, became pregnant, and had a legal abortion without her parents finding out. Although Gault, Murphy, and Kimberly Cray, 26, who lived with them, have been charged with crimes in connection with Cramer's year away from home, no one has been charged with sexual assault in the case.
Susan Lloyd Yolen, a vice president of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, declines to comment on Cramer's case on grounds that the organization "is committed to patient privacy and safety."
...No way to check
But Yolen also says Planned Parenthood accepts at face value the names given to it by young patients. She says she doesn't know what type of identification could be used for girls too young to have driver's licenses.
It isn't known what name Cramer gave Planned Parenthood.
But, speaking generally, Bloomfield police Capt. Jeffrey Blatter, says, "She was compelled to use a new name ... that would suggest she was part of that family."
Blatter says Bloomfield police put out a press release identifying Cramer as a missing person within a month or two of her 2006 disappearance. But he says the case attracted little media attention until she was discovered. The primary publicity seems to have been on the Web sites of organizations that track missing children.
So even if Cramer used her real name in getting the abortion, there is little reason to believe that it would have raised red flags for Planned Parenthood personnel.
The case comes at a time when the longstanding issue of whether a parent should be notified before an underage girl can have an abortion is getting renewed attention in Connecticut.
Parental notification was part of the Connecticut Right to Life Corp.'s legislative agenda this year, according to the organization's president, Bill O'Brien of Wolcott.
In response to a notification bill sponsored by Thompson, a Manchester Democrat, the legislature's Select Committee on Children held an "informational forum" on the issue this spring. Thompson stresses that there was an atmosphere of "genuine respect" at the forum, during which each side was allowed to present six speakers.
...Law mirrors doctors' advice
A major message Thompson took from the forum was that Connecticut's current law, which requires that underage girls seeking abortions receive counseling as to their options, closely parallels American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations to pediatricians.
The current law requires that a doctor or counselor "discuss the possibility of involving the minor's parents, guardian, or other adult family members in the minor's decision-making concerning the pregnancy and whether the minor believes that involvement would be in the minor's best interests."
The abortion law defines a minor as a person under age 16. Thompson thinks that's one area where the law may need revision.
Citing recent moves toward taking many 16- and 17-year-olds out of the adult criminal justice system, Thompson argues that it may make sense to bring girls in that age range into the state's counseling protocol when they seek abortions.
"I would like to see an end to the pro-choice/pro-life battle, at least on this issue," he says.
But not everyone is interested in middle ground.
A Texas-based organization called Life Dynamics Inc. contends that Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation systematically evade "mandatory reporting" laws, which require doctors, nurses, counselors, and numerous other professionals to report child abuse, including at least some statutory rapes, to state officials.
Life Dynamics did an undercover survey, released in 2002, in which a woman called numerous abortion clinics around the country, including several in Connecticut, posing as a 13-year-old girl who was pregnant by her 22-year-old boyfriend.
Under policies of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, such a sexual relationship would be subject to mandatory reporting.
...Illegal sex concealed
"Even though many of these clinic workers openly acknowledged to our caller that this situation was illegal and that they were required to report it to the state, the overwhelming majority readily agreed to conceal this illegal sexual activity," Mark Crutcher, president and founder of Life Dynamics, wrote in an article on the organization's Web site.
"At the very moment Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation chose to participate in these crimes, they sowed the seeds of their own destruction," he added later. "Today, the challenge facing the pro-life movement is to make certain that those seeds bear fruit."
But Yolen said in an e-mail to a reporter that Planned Parenthood complies with the law.
"We are committed to protecting teens from abuse and take very seriously our obligation to report it," she wrote. "Planned Parenthood medical professionals are trained to identify and report suspected abuse. We work with law enforcement to protect women and teens all over America and to help bring offenders to justice."
A total of 35 states require parental notification or consent for a minor -- generally defined as a girl under age 18 -- to have an abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based think tank named for a former Planned Parenthood president that focuses on sexual and reproductive health issues. Another eight states have adopted such laws only to have their enforcement blocked by the courts, the institute says.
Virtually all the enforceable parental notification and consent laws include a "judicial bypass" procedure, under which a judge can waive the notification or consent requirement at the girl's request.
Massachusetts has a parental consent law, and two Boston lawyers who are involved in arranging legal representation for girls seeking judicial bypasses presented written testimony at the Connecticut forum this spring.
...Little effect seen
The lawyers, J. Shoshanna Ehrlich and Jaime Ann Sabino, argued that such laws make little difference in parental involvement in abortion decisions.
They cited a study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 1987 that compared parental notification rates at certain clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin during three months in 1984, when Minnesota law required minors to notify both parents before having an abortion and Wisconsin had no such law.
The researchers, led by Dr. Robert William Blum of the University of Minnesota, found no significant difference between the rate at which girls in the two states notified at least one parent. It was 65.3 percent in Minnesota and 62.1 percent in Wisconsin. But they did find that Minnesota teens were more likely to notify both parents, with 43.5 percent doing so compared with 32.4 percent in Wisconsin.
Although Massachusetts judges hear judicial bypass applications on an expedited basis, Ehrlich and Sabino estimated that the process can delay an abortion by a week or two, increasing the risk of complications.
The lawyers also suggested that the process compromises confidentiality, citing cases in which girls have met people they know at court.
But O'Brien argues that Connecticut's lack of a parental notification or consent law is "really protecting the sexual predator."
As to Cramer, he said, "She might have had the baby, but if that happens it's a little more likely that somebody may know about it. Sexual activity may cease or become more of a burden on the sexual predator to support the girl and the baby."
Nicole Steward of the Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services took a different view in an e-mail to a reporter: "When we hear about adult men kidnapping and coercing children into sexual activity, it is natural to look for simple answers. Changing the parental consent laws, however, is not the answer.
"Parental consent laws can have the adverse effect of young women delaying or failing to seek medical care, putting their health further at risk," Steward added.
We must kill, kill the baby!
This stinks to high heaven!
What is an ABORTION CLINIC doing IGNORING the LAW of parental notification and trying to hide behind “patient privacy and safety?
Shut down planned parenthood!
The states should revoke the licenses of physicians and nurses who fail to report statutory rapes of girls they perform abortions on.
Regardless how laudable the goal, no grandparent has
the authority to order or deny the execution of their
grandchild.
Man Assaults Runaway Girl, 12, Pregnancy Test, Jumps on Stomach, In Jail
That's odd, this is not where I read it today but can't find it in my history.
The school nurse has to check with the parents to get permission to give the child an aspirin. But no problem if she wants an abortion. Keep the parents out of it.
Bingo. When they get through pushing PParenthood’s sex education for public schools (try anything, condoms), can you take your daughter and grandchild to them once they’re pregnant? Will they sit and hold their hands in the hospital with cervical cancer? Can you sue PP or the school? I know girls that are 23 and younger that have had over four abortions... does that make sense? Do they think that ‘helps’ them physically, emotionally, financial wise? What about thinking about the cons BEFORE they have sex? For others (not this child), what happened to responsibility for your actions and not pushing your consequences onto taxpayers when it’s a ‘private choice’? We’re even sending loot overseas, it’s not enough to ruin it here in the US. Rant off/
They’ve been doing this for years... and on much younger.
If people knew how many sexual offenders got away with taking minors for abortions and it’s never reported.
As a bonus, PParenthood gets to sell off tissues as well.
44 million served, probably the number of the ‘undocumented’ that we almost legalized to do the jobs dead pre-Americans won’t do. Anybody getting it yet?
When you are not re-populating your country, someone else will migrate and do it for you. One question, who’s having the babies?
Oh and wait till the greenies start bringing up reducing population again... you’ve already been told breathing is bad for the environment (I guess PP has an offset campaign going for CO2 as well as Mother’s Day cards)
ping
Holdonnow, any way to find the particular laws and statutes re: this state and reporting requirements?
.
“We are committed to protecting teens from abuse and take very seriously our obligation to report it,” she wrote. “Planned Parenthood medical professionals are trained to identify and report suspected abuse. We work with law enforcement to protect women and teens all over America and to help bring offenders to justice.”>>>>>>>
Are the people actually answering the phones medical professionals? If the 13 yo talks to someone on the phone is that person a medical professional? Somehow I’m not so sure, but if they aren’t actually nurses or drs answering the phone then ‘techniquely’ the statement is true, since if the young teen would actually come in she would lie about her age and the age of the father after being told to do so from the non medical professional.
The author of America’s first ever abortion law, Dick “Duty to Die”
Lamm, is now a spokesperson for the anti-illegal immigration
movment.
Oh the bitter irony!
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