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Excerpts of Testimony of Marcia Carroll, in support of HR 748, The Child Interstate
Abortion Notification Act, before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, U.S. House
of Representatives March 3, 2005
On Christmas Eve 2004, my daughter informed me she was pregnant. I assured her I
would seek out all resources and help that was available. As her parents, her father
and I would stand beside her and support any decision she made.
We scheduled appointments with her pediatrician, her private counselor, and her
school nurse. I followed all of their advice and recommendations. They referred
us to Healthy Beginnings Plus, Lancaster Family Services, and the WIC program. They
discussed all her options with her. I purposefully allowed my daughter to speak
alone with professionals so that she would speak her mind and not just say what
she thought I wanted to hear.
My daughter chose to have the baby and raise it. My family fully supported my daughter’s
decision to keep her baby and offered her our love and support.
Subsequently, her boyfriend’s family began to harass my daughter and my family.
They started showing up at our house to express their desire for my daughter to
have an abortion. When that did not work, his grandmother started calling my daughter
without my knowledge. They would tell her that if she kept the baby, she couldn’t
see her boyfriend again. They threatened to move out of state.
. . .
On Feb. 16th, I sent my daughter to her bus stop with $2.00 of lunch money. I thought
she was safe at school. She and her boyfriend even had a prenatal class scheduled
after school.
However, what really happened was that her boyfriend and his family met with her
down the road from her bus stop and called a taxi. The adults put the children in
the taxi to take them to the train station. His stepfather met the children at the
train station, where he had to purchase my daughter’s ticket since she was only
fourteen. They put the children on the train from Lancaster to Philadelphia. From
there, they took two subways to New Jersey. That is where his family met the children
and took them to the abortion clinic, where one of the adults had made the appointment.
When my daughter started to cry and have second thoughts, they told her they would
leave her in New Jersey. They planned, paid for, coerced, harassed, and threatened
her into having the abortion. They left her alone during the abortion and went to
eat lunch.
After the abortion, his stepfather and grandmother drove my daughter home from New
Jersey and dropped her off down the road from our house.
My daughter told me that on the way home she started to cry, they got angry at her
and told her there was nothing to cry about.
. . .
As a consequence of my daughter being taken out of our state for an abortion without
parental knowledge, she is suffering intense grief. My daughter cries herself to
sleep at night and lives with this everyday.
Excerpts of Testimony of Joyce Farley, in support of H.R. 3682, the Child Custody
Protection Act, Subcommittee on the Constitution, U.S. House of Representatives
May 21, 1998
My daughter was a victim of several horrible crimes between the ages of 12 and 13.
My child was provided alcohol, raped and then taken out of state by a stranger to
have an abortion. This stranger turned out to be the mother of the adult male who
provided the alcohol and then raped my 12 year old daughter while she was unconscious.
The rapist’s mother arranged and paid for an abortion to be performed on my child.
This woman lied and falsified records at the abortion clinic to make sure this abortion
would be completed without my knowledge. The abortion had been arranged to destroy
evidence—evidence that my 12 year old daughter had been raped. On August
31, 1995, my daughter, who had just turned 13, underwent a dangerous medical procedure
without anyone present who knew her past medical history as shown by the false information
in the medical record.
Following the abortion, the mother of the rapist dropped off my physically and emotionally
battered child in another town 30 miles away from our home. The plan was to keep
the rape and abortion a secret. If I had not contacted the state police on the morning
of August 31, 1995 when I found my child missing, she might not be alive today.
Severe pain and bleeding revealed complications from an incomplete abortion. This
required further medical care and a second abortion to be performed. When my daughter
began having complications from the first abortion, I contacted the New York clinic
only to be told that her bleeding was normal and to increase her Naprosyn, which
was given for pain, to every hour if needed. Being a nurse, I knew this advice was
wrong and could be harmful, but my daughter would not have known this. It was obvious
proper care could not be received from the New York clinic. Our Family Doctor made
a referral to a gynecologist, and my daughter received the care she needed—in spite
of the fact that the Clinic made it difficult to obtain her medical records. Who
would have helped my daughter if the mother of the rapist was successful in keeping
the abortion a secret? My child suffered terribly, but I am thankful that she is
alive.
The bill you are considering today may help prevent this from happening to my neighbor’s
child, my future grandchildren, or any child in the United States. It has been three
years since these crimes were committed, but my daughter still suffers physically
and emotionally.
Hon. James L Oberstar United States Representative from the Eighth Congressional
District of the State of Minnesota, in support of H.R. 3682, the Child Custody Protection
Act, Subcommittee on the Constitution, U.S. House of Representatives May 21, 1998
On April 15, my friends found out that their 14-year-old daughter was pregnant.
As a family, they were devastated. Although they had always believed that life is
sacred and rejected abortion as an option, they were suddenly faced with the very
real impact that an unwanted pregnancy for a child has on a family. They agonized
over deciding whether their daughter could mentally withstand the stress of carrying
the baby to term versus the horrible guilt for their daughter and themselves associated
with aborting the baby solely for their own convenience.
My friends decided to take time to carefully study the options. They took their
daughter for an ultrasound so she could see the fetus growing within her and think
about what that developing life might mean. They scheduled a visit to St. Anne’s
home in Prince George’s county, a residential community and school established for
young, unwed pregnant teens. They scheduled a visit to the Shady Grove Crisis Pregnancy
Center so their daughter could better understand abortion procedures, risks, and
psychological consequences. They arranged for discussions with adoption agencies
so they could understand how a baby might bring joy to some deserving couple out
of the pain that they as a family would endure during their daughter’s pregnancy.
And they prayed frequently with their family, friends, and church community for
guidance.
My friends’ daughter was swamped with confusing and conflicting feelings about the
pregnancy. Initially, she wanted an abortion to avoid the terrible impact on her
life of an unwanted baby. Then, as she reflected on her family and her own religious
belief, she decided that she would have to see the pregnancy through and give up
the baby for adoption since she knew she had no resources to raise and care for
a baby. Then she thought briefly about her responsibility to this new life and considered
the possibility of keeping the baby and trying to provide the love and care that
an infant and developing child would need.
While my friends were struggling with trying to find the right answer for their
family, and their daughter was experiencing a whirlwind of conflicting emotions,
their daughter’s friends, some of whom were over 20 years old, were pressuring her
to have an abortion and end the pregnancy. Without any concern for the potential
risks to this young girl, without consideration of the consequences to the family,
and with no thought of the long term psychological consequences to this child, they
continued to “turn up the heat” on her to have an abortion.
Finally, on May 1, my friend’s daughter ran away from home, helped by these older
so-called friends. The girl left before my friends were even able to help her finish
looking at her options. Before she could see what support might be available to
her, and before the procedures and consequences of the abortion could be explained.
For sixteen days, my friends’ daughter was missing and they heard nothing from her.
In their anguish, my friends imagined every conceivable terrible thing that could
happen to their daughter. The combined efforts of the Montgomery County Police Department
and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department were unable to locate this missing
girl. In the case of the police department, they told my friends that they processed
almost 2000 runaway cases a year and had only 2 detectives assigned to follow-up
on current cases. When the police learned that my friends’ daughter might be seeking
an abortion, they showed even less concern for trying to find this missing teenager.
Empty nights of loneliness and regret gave way to dreary dawns of increasing hopelessness
as time passed, and no word came back on the location of their daughter.
Finally, completely unexpectedly, my friends’ daughter showed up at home, pale as
a ghost, weak, distraught, and emotionally nearly destroyed. Her so-called friends
had helped her obtain an abortion outside of Maryland using a false name, and probably
false medical information. Then they dumped her back near her parents’ house and
disappeared. This broken girl is now hospitalized for severe depression and faces
a long and difficult recovery. Her family has been torn and denied the opportunity
to provide the love, support, and advice that she needed to make a well thought
out decision on the best possible course of action for herself. Bullied by thoughtless
and self-centered outsiders, my friends’ daughter succumbed to coercion and was
drawn away from the family that loved her at the time she needed them most.
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