Anti-Abortion Advocate is Giving Schools Baseless Facts on "Forced Abortions"

Allan Parker, a local lawyer who's been diligently working over a decade to overturn Roe v. Wade, sent a letter to every Texas school district Wednesday reminding them that parents are not allowed to force their child to have an abortion if their child is against it.

"Many teenage daughters and adult women have been forced to have an abortion," he writes.

In an interview with the Current, Parker was unable to back up that sweeping—and terrifying—claim.

"There is no real data on this issue," he conceded.

Of course, all licensed school counselors should already know that "forced abortions" are illegal—it's their job to know what constitutes child abuse or any other illegal activity. But Parker believes otherwise.

"It's the law, right. But we're the first people telling them about it and talking about it," he said.

If this allegation is true, this would be a huge failure within the Texas Education Agency.

This isn't the first time Parker has asked schools to inform counselors and parents about forced abortion

According to him, these letters have "stopped 95 percent of forced abortion cases." Parker couldn't explain how he was able to calculate this outcome.

Parker, who runs a local legal aid organization called the Justice Foundation, said teenage girls with parents who force them to do the opposite, carry a baby to term, have it easier.

Looking at state laws, it's hard to understand his logic.

In Texas, a minor needs a parent's sign-off before going through with an abortion. If their parents refuse, the girl can go to court to gain a judge's approval, or a "judicial bypass," meaning she must prove that she's "mature" enough to have an abortion. Of course, no state or federal court has ever questioned if a minor is mature enough to give birth to a human being, let alone require a parent's approval to do so.

Parker said this is because one of the options result in death. And that "Texas is allowed to have bias in their law to be pro-life."

The Texas Supreme Court made judicial bypass even harder for teens last year, ruling that a minor can be denied an abortion if a judge simply waits five business days without ruling on the case.

Parker, however, argued that it's unfair that pregnant minors get a state-appointed attorney to help defend their case.

"It would be nice to have the state help out girls forced to have an abortion, too," he said. But victims of child abuse are usually allowed an attorney free-of-charge. After considering this, Parker reneged: "They probably could get a court-appointed lawyer, actually."

Parker's work as a lawyer has been questioned in the past by at least one federal judge, who called him incompetent for filing "highly prejudicial and legally irrelevant" documents in court.

The Justice Foundation offers school counselors no information on how to work with a pregnant teen to get through school, access prenatal medical care, or understand her other legal rights. Instead, Parker said, he directs counselors to their local Crisis Pregnancy Centers—a name for the religious anti-abortion organizations that use junk science and guilt-tripping to talk women out of getting an abortion.  These centers rarely have a doctor on staff, but, as of this year, are now receiving state funding for providing "women's health care."

Parker's letter coincides with a report from the March of Dimes finding little improvement in Bexar County's dangerously high premature birth rate. Premature births—a "chronic problem" across Texas—are directly linked to no or late prenatal care for women.

But let's talk about forced abortions.