ALABAMA JUDGE USES NOVEL TACTIC TO GET TEENS TO RECONSIDER ABORTION

MONTGOMERY, Ala., January 20, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Alabama is one of 32 states where parental consent laws or notification laws or both are reportedly enforced. In most cases this means that a girl under 18 who becomes pregnant and wants an abortion without parental consent must first obtain permission from a juvenile court judge.  Judge Walter Mark Anderson III is one such judge, profiled in the New York Times last week as “a conservative Republican who says he hates abortion – and hates granting such petitions”—but who does his best to discourage abortion during the hearing. One tactic he uses is to appoint a lawyer to represent the unborn child, and to cross-examine and inform the young lady that she would be ending a life, and that abortion has many other potential complications.  “I think the procedures before were pretty much a rubber stamp,” Judge Anderson told the Times. “You asked for it, you got it; not many questions asked. Now it’s a little bit different. There are questions asked. … I’m not the one that ends the life of an unborn child. But I’m sort of a gatekeeper. If I open the gate, then there’s nobody else to say no.”  To read the full story see:  https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/20/national/20ALAB.html?ex=1043730000&en=36358e848666bd85&ei=5040