On The Right - Steve Forbes's presidential campaign; presidential candidacy of Gov. George W. Bush; need to protect rights of parents in teenage abortion - candidacy of Gov. George W. Bush - Column

"Today's House vote, 270 to 159, was well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto," Mr. Rosenbaum reports. It is not known whether the Senate will pass complementary legislation this year, but if it does, the White House has said that the president will veto it.

Why? The Annie episode is not a comprehensive rebuke to the impulse by the House to protect the rights of the parent. Hard cases make bad law, as someone remarked. Annie's rape to one side, Congress has a persuasive interest in exercising its constitutional responsibility to regulate commerce. Should abortionists in Connecticut have the right to lure girls from Massachusetts to the Nutmeg State so that they can evade the supervision and counsel of their mothers? In Nevada there are whores who, unlike the whores in other states, perform legally. Should entrepreneurs in Utah be free to take minors across the line to learn a new profession? We have a federal law that prohibits this. Why is a different principle involved where abortion is concerned?

Is there any prospect the voters in the 20 states that believe mothers should be consulted before an abortion is performed on their 17-year-old daughters will make their voices heard in Congress? The House has voted to acknowledge parental concern and responsibility; the Senate is evading the question (how would Sens. Dodd and Moynihan vote?); the brooding omnipresence in the White House listens to his pollsters, who tell him that the abortion lobby is more active than the other side, which is understandable-there is much more money to be made in performing abortions than in avoiding pregnancies. -Universal Press Syndicate

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