By Mannix Porterfield
CHARLESTON — West Virginians for Life faces the prospect of its first setback in the Legislature in three years.
After succeeding with informed consent and the so-called Laci Peterson bill of a year ago, the Morgantown-based group is having trouble corralling support in the House of Delegates for a parental notification measure.
That would compel abortionists to notify a parent or guardian 24 hours in advance when an underage girl applies to have her child aborted.
“I think that it’s not going to run,” Majority Leader Rick Staton, D-Wyoming, said after Friday’s floor session.
While time is rapidly expiring, Staton described the pro-life movement’s top priority and the table games proposal as both “fluid.”
“Ultimately, we don’t have the votes to pass them,” he said.
“Those are bills that take a significant time to work. There’s not enough utility working a bill if it doesn’t have a chance at passage.”
In past sessions, pro-life bills traditionally cleared the House with 80-plus votes, and by even larger margins in the Senate.
Staton said he heard many delegates say West Virginians for Life was “pushing the envelope” on the matter.
“It wasn’t curtailing the abortion as much as it was pushing the girls into a different setting that might intimidate them,” he said.
The bill still has a chance, however slim, in the Senate. If that chamber acts, Staton said, the House would consider its proposal.
One longtime supporter of pro-life legislation, Sen. Roman Prezioso, D-Marion, faulted House Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh, for misleading the Senate into thinking his chamber would get an early start.
“That was the intent from the beginning, again, another plan where the speaker was very clear that he was going to run the bill first, and we backed off,” Prezioso said.
“We were courteous to his request. And it doesn’t get done.”
Prezioso said he has “a great relationship” with some House members and some committee chairs there.
“Until they allow the committee process to work, where bills can get a fair hearing with their membership, they’re going to continue to have trouble,” the Senate health and human resources chairman said.
“One person can’t direct and dictate what goes on in any house. The president doesn’t do that over here. The speaker shouldn’t be able to do that over there.”
West Virginians for Life’s legislative liaison, Melissa Adkins, was unavailable for comment.
Her group had touted the bill as a law-and-order measure, designed to track down or discourage adult males from sexually abusing underage girls, then using abortion to cover their crimes.
But opponents feared the bill would frighten some girls into having illegal abortions and run the risk of fatal complications, as one juvenile did in another state out of fear of disclosing the pregnancy to her parents.
Gov. Joe Manchin was endorsed by West Virginians for Life and has gone in record as in support of the bill, saying he had once worked on a similar measure as a state senator.
— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com
