Congressional Democrats Struggle to Defend Vote to Strike Down Parental-Consent Abortion Laws

Parental-consent abortion laws are overwhelmingly popular. So consistent was support for such laws that Gallup—which found about 70 percent of Americans backed them over nearly two decades—stopped polling the issue in 2011.

Parental-consent abortion laws are so popular and there was so little controversy surrounding them that from 2013 to 2018 these laws were explicitly carved out and protected from the Democrats’ sweeping federal legislation (the Women’s Health Protection Act) to strike down almost all state laws on abortion.

Even with the parental-consent carveout, the WHPA was seen as so extreme that Democrats never put it up for a vote in the House or the Senate until Nancy Pelosi forced a vote in September 2021 and Chuck Schumer followed suit last month.

One remarkable feature of the version of the WHPA that congressional Democrats almost unanimously voted for is that it dropped the exemption parental-consent laws and explicitly states that “access to abortion services has been obstructed” by “parental involvement laws (notification and consent).”

Since the Senate voted on the WHPA on February 28, I’ve asked several Democratic senators about the bill, and they don’t seem prepared to defend it.

From a new piece on the homepage:

When I recently asked [Mark] Kelly if the bill he voted for, the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), would invalidate Arizona’s parental-consent law, the Arizona senator told me he didn’t know. “I think that’s something that you could, you know, reach out to the Congressional Research [Service] folks and figure out,” Kelly said. He did, however, express general opposition to parental-consent laws, saying he would not be the “arbiter of an age” at which a minor could choose to have an abortion without her parents’ involvement.

The office of GOP senator Steve Daines, the chairman of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, tells National Review that it confirmed with the Congressional Research Service that Arizona’s parental-consent law would likely be struck down under the WHPA.

[…]

“I’d have to get back to you,” Blumenthal replied in response to each question. When I followed up with him later, he said the bill “would preclude medically unnecessary laws” but refused to specify whether parental-involvement laws fell into that category.

Other Senate Democrats similarly dodged the question. Colorado senator Michael Bennet wouldn’t say whether the WHPA would strike down Colorado’s parental-notification law. “We were just voting on a motion to proceed” to debate on the bill, Bennet said, so questions about specific provisions were “premature” though he would be “happy to answer them when they’re relevant.” But Bennet didn’t merely vote to start debate on the bill; he is one of 48 Democratic senators who cosponsored it, and now he is unwilling or unable to say what effect it would have on existing laws in his own state.

Michigan senator Gary Peters, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told National Journal on March 1: “Reproductive health for women is a powerful issue and one that we will certainly be campaigning on in the fall.” When I subsequently asked Peters if he supported getting rid of parental-consent laws, he replied: “Parents should always be involved in decisions for their children.” When pressed on if the bill he’d voted for would strike down state laws mandating such involvement, Peters gave the same non-answer: “I would certainly want parents to continue to play a key role in decisions for their children.”

Mark Kelly, the endangered Arizona incumbent, was less equivocal.

“As a parent myself, somebody who has raised two daughters who are now in their mid 20s, I take this very seriously. But ultimately I feel that young women at a certain age should have the rights to make these kind of decisions with their doctor,” Kelly told National Review in the Capitol. But at what age should a minor be able to make that decision without parental consent? “I’m not going to be the arbiter of an age and a timeline and red line,” Kelly said. “You know, people ask, ‘Is there a red line here?’ No. But, I think it’s important for women to be able to make these decisions on their own, and not a bunch of folks in Washington making them for them.”