Noooooo!!! Not again!
Feminist Daily News reports today that, "A proposed ballot initiative seeking a California constitutional amendment requiring parental notification and a 48-hour waiting period before a minor can obtain an abortion was filed yesterday at the California Attorney General's Office."
This will be the fourth effort to pass a parental notification law in California in recent years. In 2005, voters struck down Parental Notification initiative, Prop 73; in 2006, Prop 85 was soundly defeated; and most recently, in 2008, voters showed their unwavering support for young women, by voting NO on Prop 4.
Yet somehow, anti-abortion forces haven't gotten the message. How much clearer can we make it? Californians do not want young women under age 18 to be forced to notify a parent and wait 48 hours before obtaining an abortion.
Parental notification and consent laws put the health and lives of young women in danger. In other states with parental notification laws, young women have put their lives at risk by seeking illegal, back-alley abortions.
Parental notification laws are often promoted as efforts to "protect teen safety" or "stop child predators", but these laws are nothing short of attacks on a woman's right to choose. The proponents of parental involvement laws are the same folks who are opposed to comprehensive sex ed - which reduces unintended pregnancy among young people, and thus, the need for abortion. Clearly, any attempts to act concerned about the health and lives of young women are just for show.
As someone who has been heavily involved in working to defeat the last two parental notification initiatives in California, I must say, I am not excited at the prospect of devoting our valuable time and resources to a 2010 ballot initiative, when we could be doing things to positively affect the health and lives of women.
On the bright side, the proposed amendment must undergo review by the Attorney General, and still must obtain 700,000 signatures before it can become an official ballot initiative in 2010.
