"Virginia officials said yesterday that the state law requiring parental notification before minors have abortions applies to the abortion pill, RU-486, which the Food and Drug Administration approved last month after a decade of study.

Virginia's guidelines for the pill's use appear to be the region's strictest. The District has no parental consent law, and Maryland's law gives physicians wide latitude to decide whether consent is necessary.

The approval of RU-486, a pill that when taken with a second drug can induce a miscarriage, has opened a host of questions for politicians, doctors and activists on both sides of the abortion issue.

In Virginia, where health officials and the attorney general's office have been studying the legal questions surrounding the pill's approval, it is also uncertain whether Medicaid funds will be available for women seeking the drug. Virginia law denies the use of public money for a surgical abortion except in cases of rape, incest or if the woman's life is in danger.

In the District, officials said yesterday that they, too, are unsure whether the prohibition against using public funds for abortion applies to the pill.

'This is a whole new area of contraception which heretofore has not been available,' said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1). 'I'm
not sure whether additional action is required or not.'

Maryland law allows public funding for abortion 'for almost any reason,' said David Lam, executive director of Maryland Right to Life.

But given some of the medical issues associated with RU-486--such as bleeding and cramping--Lam said his organization may pursue a so-called informed consent law that would require doctors to inform women of the risks.

Other than that, he said, 'I really don't think there's a whole lot states can do. . . . We can't override the FDA.'

The Old Dominion appears to be the first among states with parental notification or consent laws to announce that those laws apply to RU-486, abortion rights officials said yesterday. Such laws are on the books in 31 other states.

'They were not written with either surgical or medical [abortion] in mind but rather with the intent to get parents involved and to discourage minors from having abortions,' said Betsy Cavendish, legal director of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.

Cavendish said she and other abortion rights officials expect virtually all states with such laws to apply them to the pill.

Virginia abortion rights supporters agreed yesterday with state officials that the law does cover RU-486 and that minors who seek an abortion using the pill will be required to notify at least one parent or legal guardian at least 24 hours in advance.

'Virginia's parental notification law on the books specifically references nonsurgical abortion as being covered by the requirement that a minor must demonstrate that she has told a parent of her abortion,' said Karen A. Raschke, an attorney in Richmond for the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy.

Laws on whether Medicaid funds can be used to cover abortions vary widely from state to state. Under federal guidelines, women on Medicaid are eligible to use the program for surgical abortion in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest, and some abortion rights activists said yesterday that the same standards, at the very least, should apply to the abortion pill.

'I don't see any reason why . . . at the state level, a woman wouldn't be able to get RU-486 if she's entitled to it' under the federal guidelines, Cavendish said.

Virginia Attorney General Mark L. Earley (R), who sponsored the parental notification law in 1997 when he was a state senator, had his staff evaluate the law in light of the FDA's approval of the abortion pill. The conclusion was that it 'remains intact and applies with regards to RU-486,' said Earley's spokesman, David Botkins.

Doctors are required to get parental permission before dispensing any other medication to a minor, said Botkins, so that would also apply to RU-486" (Jennifer Lenhart, The Washington Post, October 10, 2000).