Proposition 73: Parental Notification
Anyone who knows me knows that I am an opponent of abortion “rights”. This measure is being attacked along those lines: you’re either for abortion “rights” or your not, pick a side and vote on this issue. But abortion is not completely a black and white issue. I’m fully willing to allow abortions for life-threatening reasons. In 99% of all cases where the mother dies during a pregnancy, the baby dies too (not that this was hard to figure out). Allowing a mother to kill a baby who is going to die anyway to save their own life is reasonable enough.
Similarly on the other side of the equation, even if one stands for abortion “rights”, one has to accept that it is a serious decision and not one that should be taken lightly. Children have a tendancy to do that, take too lightly serious decisions. The reality is that a 16 year old can’t get a flu shot without their parents CONSENT. All prop. 73 is asking is that abortion clinics NOTIFY the parents (i.e. the parents can’t even stop the child from going through with it because they don’t need to give consent). The main excuse thrown out there is that there are children who have abusive parents, who couldn’t tell their parents without risking further abuse. In my opinion, this is a stupid argument for a number of reasons:
1. There is a provision in the law to allow children to get a judicial bypass.
2. Despite arguments against reason #1 about it being a too complicated process for the child to get a judicial bypass, I guarantee you that clinics like planned parenthood will help children through the process (to the point of abusing it by knowing the judges who will grant the bypass even when it shouldn’t be).
3. The child doesn’t have to notify the parents, the clinic does that. This allows the child to have physical separation if needed.
4. This state has some of the most comprehensive child abuse laws in the world. If a parent is abusing a child, these laws already exist to protect them.
5. This is a corner case affecting a VERY small percentage of children.
The reality is that most children who don’t want to talk to their parents, don’t want to talk to them because they don’t want to face the music regarding the choices in their lives. We shouldn’t give children that choice. Parents should be involved in these decisions. Notifying parents so that they can talk to their children (and remember that is all this proposition does, it does NOT require parental consent) about this choice, is the right thing to do.
My endorsement: YES on prop. 73