The school district is only the second in the nation to approve such a regulation. Howard and Marie Carter alleged that their daughter Stephanie, then 17, got an abortion at a New Jersey clinic in May 1998 at the urging of William Hickey, the guidance counselor at Hatboro-Horsham High School. The family also charged that Hickey used the school district's bank accounts to cash checks from the baby's father to finance the abortion, provided excuses so Stephanie could skip school, and drew her a map to the New Jersey clinic, according to the Associated Press . Pennsylvania's 1989 Abortion Control Act requires teens to notify their parents before an abortion or appear before a judge to bypass the requirement.
New Jersey has no parental notification requirement.
The North Penn School District policy specifically encourages students to involve their parents in any abortion decision. We send them to their parents, which is where they should be. The trial before a Milwaukee County Circuit Court jury began April 24 and was expected to last two weeks. According to attorney Patrick Dunphy, Linda Boom of Bayside, Wisconsin, discovered that her unborn baby had Down syndrome and decided to get an abortion, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Daniel Gilman, Watson's supervising doctor, took over and injected still more chemicals into Linda Boom's body, the Journal Sentinel reported.