SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 22
(By Senator Boley)
Urging Congress to reject the "Freedom of Choice Act of 1993".
Whereas, A U.S. House of Representatives bill and a U.S.
Senate bill (H.R. 25 and S. 25), cited by the sponsors of each as
the "Freedom of Choice Act of 1993", are now being considered by
both houses of the Congress of the United States which would
invalidate West Virginia abortion related regulations, including
West Virginia's parental notification law, which is recognized as
constitutional and within the province of state jurisdiction in
light of decisions by the United States Supreme Court; and
Whereas, Both "Freedom of Choice Act of 1993" bills would
invalidate West Virginia's statutory requirement that before an
abortion is performed on a minor, the abortion-performing
physician must first notify the minor's parent or guardian or
obtain a waiver of such notification from another unaffiliated
physician or seek a judicial waiver of parental notification
through a judicial bypass. Both bills impliedly require that a
state, in requiring parental notification, must also provide each
minor the option of consulting another responsible adult, thereby
circumventing the involvement of a minor's parent or guardian;
and
Whereas, Both bills would require a state to prove that anyhealth regulation of abortion by the state is "medically
necessary" to protect the health of women undergoing such
procedures, those regulations in West Virginia requiring the
filing of forms documenting the reason for waiver of parental
notification, the reporting of complications of an abortion
performed on a minor and the reporting of information about the
minor such as age, previous pregnancies, births or abortions
would be held to a higher scrutiny in determining their validity
than West Virginia record requirements for other medical
procedures; and
Whereas, The House version of the "Freedom of Choice Act of
1993" only allows a state to protect unwilling individuals, but
not health care institutions, from having to participate in the
performance of an abortion when they are conscientiously opposed,
and thus it would prohibit the state of West Virginia from
protecting health care institutions that refuse to make their
facilities available for the performance of abortions from
lawsuits; and
Whereas, The "Freedom of Choice Act of 1993" would prohibit
the state of West Virginia from protecting a viable unborn child
capable of surviving outside of the womb from a late-term
abortion since the "Freedom of Choice Act of 1993" prohibits a
state from limiting in any way the discretion of abortion-
performing doctors to perform abortions after viability to
enhance the mental or emotional health of the mother; and
Whereas, The "Freedom of Choice Act of 1993" would prohibit,as made clear in the U. S. Senate labor and human resources
committee report, the state of West Virginia from giving a woman
considering abortion the right to know the probable gestational
age of her unborn child, the medical risks of the abortion
procedure to be used as well as the medical risks associated with
carrying the child to term and, if she wishes, the right to
information about the availability of the medical or other
benefits that may be available for her and her child before,
during and after the birth of the child, and objective,
scientifically accurate medical facts about the development of
the unborn child; and
Whereas, The House version of the "Freedom of Choice Act of
1993", as made clear in the U. S. Senate labor and human
resources committee report, would coerce the use of state funds
to pay for the performance of abortions; therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate:
That the West Virginia Senate urges the Congress of the
United States to reject the "Freedom of Choice Act of 1993" bills
pending in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives
which would invalidate virtually every abortion related
regulation enacted by the people of West Virginia through their
elected officials; and, be it
Further Resolved, That copies of this resolution be
forwarded to each member of the West Virginia congressional
delegation.