Forcing The Issue Toward A Bitter End Losing Proposition Bill Pits Parental Rights Against Girls’ Safety.

Washington’s legislators failed frightened teens this week.

In voting for a bill requiring that parents be notified before a minor has an abortion, the state Senate dismissed the issue with cold, adult logic. It was absolutely the wrong perspective for understanding the reality of a teen’s world.

Adults quibble over the difference between consent and notification. For a kid, though, it all boils down to the same thing: You have to tell your parents. And if your parents are abusive, you’ve got to talk to a judge. Imagine that one when you’re only 15 years old.

Here’s the more likely scenario: A kid scared to death to tell her parents stalls and wishes away her pregnancy. In the meantime, she courts far riskier outcomes than a safe, legal and early abortion. Girls who wait wind up with more complicated late-term abortions. They seek out illegal back-alley practitioners. They may even cloak themselves in denial throughout the entire pregnancy, tragically delivering and disposing of the babies in secret.

These bills purport to strengthen the rights of parents. But any good parent - and plenty of lousy ones, too, - would choose their child’s safety over a government-prescribed phone call any day.

It’s up to parents to create relationships with their kids that are based on trust and respect. When they don’t, the state shouldn’t rush in.

According to Planned Parenthood, the majority of teens already talk to their parents when they are considering an abortion. Among 14-year-olds, 90 percent do.

One who didn’t was a 16-year-old Indiana girl named Becky Bell. The Bells were seen as the perfect family in their small town. Their gentle blond daughter loved horses, music and school.

When Becky became pregnant, she couldn’t dream of shattering her parents’ image. A Planned Parenthood staff member told her the state of Indiana required parental consent. She underwent an illegal, botched abortion instead.

Within a few days, Becky’s fever shot to 104. An infection raged through her body, tearing apart her lungs. She died in less than a week.

Parents of Washington teens can live without a parental notification law. What they should never have to live with is the sorrow Karen and Bill Bell face every day for the rest of their lives: the loss of a well-loved daughter.

, DataTimes MEMO: For opposing view, see headline: Notifications promote family values response

The following fields overflowed: SUPCAT = COLUMN, EDITORIAL - From both sides CREDIT = Jamie Tobias Neely For the editorial board