Senate Approves Abortion Notification Bill Measure Requires Girls To Tell At Least One Parent; House Ok Expected

Thu., March 20, 1997

Kery Murakami And David Postman Seattle Times

The Washington Senate voted Wednesday to require girls to notify at least one parent before getting an abortion.

The vote came just hours after House Republicans failed in their attempt to pass a more controversial measure that would have outlawed so-called partial-birth abortions.

The Senate measure, SB 5255, is likely to be passed in the House but faces an uncertain fate from Gov. Gary Locke, who has a history of supporting full abortion rights.

The bill passed on a 25-24 vote. It would require parental notification of abortions for minors except when a physician says there’s a medical emergency or a Superior Court judge, after a hearing in chambers, grants an exception.

Rep. Joyce Mulliken, R-Ephrata, said House conservatives would try to keep the late-term-abortion issue alive.

However, a number of Republicans in the House and Senate say banning the procedure whittles away abortion rights and would endanger women who need abortions for medical reasons in the third trimester of their pregnancies.

House Minority Leader Marlin Appelwick, D-Seattle, said that even if the Senate keeps the issue alive, Wednesday’s vote “showed the kind of reception it’s likely to get if it comes back here.”

House Bill 1031 failed 54-44.

The two issues are atop the Republican leadership’s social agenda this session, and House Speaker Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee, had considered them moderate measures that legislators in both parties could support.

But all 42 Democrats and 12 Republicans voted to table the abortion bill.

Only two Democrats, James Kastama of Puyallup and Timothy Sheldon of Potlatch, voted for the ballot measure on same-sex marriage, House Bill 1130. Eight Republicans voted against it.

Both issues caused fits for Republicans. The abortion bill came to a vote on the House floor only after Rep. Renee Radcliff, R-Lynnwood, facing intense pressure from other Republicans, voted to pass the bill out of committee. Radcliff, however, voted against the measure.

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