You’ve seen the ads, trying to make us feel scared for the fate of a young woman who has to ask her parents if she can have an abortion. We’re supposed to believe she’ll be abused, maybe both physically and emotionally, and will instead seek an illegal abortion or (gasp) have the child.
Here is a short summary, by a radical foe to Prop 4, under the title HELP needed to defeat anti-choice Prop 4 in CA — no, No, and NO again! [UPDATED]
Proposition 4 is another bad anti-choice proposal: either parental notification or an automatic child abuse investigation if the young woman doesn’t want to notify her parents and can’t find a judge to approve. And if she is able to find a judge, the judge then has to declare her mature enough, and the judges have to make annual reports, county-by-county, on how many abortions are approved for young women each year.
Omitted at the “no on 4” site above (a typical one) is any serious discussion of how the current law aids child molesters, by making it easy for them to intimidate their victims into quietly aborting the evidence. Yes, it is possible that some parents will not respond well when told their daughter is pregnant. But it is certain that current law is used to enable child molesters and statutory rapists (predatory males taking advantage of young girls), and allow them to continue undetected.
To the Left, abortion is a hyper-privileged “right” that trumps every other consideration. ANY abortion performed on a minor is prima facie evidence of the crime of statutory rape. Yet the current law provides no mechanism for reporting the possible crime. And it isn’t just a possible but rare crime… Very large numbers of minor girls who become pregnant are made so by men who are NOT minors. No one is suggesting the frequent prosecution of minor boys for having sex with minor girls, although this still fits the definition of statutory rape. But even when the “father” is a minor, isn’t this a serious enough issue to require some parental participation in decisions surrounding the situation?
When the “father” is NOT a minor, it’s a crime, pure and simple. The parents need to be involved in any decision about an abortion, and any other actions that may result.
Of course, to the Left, sex is NEVER a crime, short of violent rape and pedophilia…
Current law does not let a minor child get an aspirin at school, get a tattoo, etc., without parental approval, signed, sealed and delivered. The only reason abortion is an exception is because it is that hyper-privileged “right” (some would say “rite”) that the Left thinks is necessary to keep the sexual revolution in full swing.
I don’t expect this discussion to matter to anyone on the Left. But if you’re on the fence at all, consider what a BAD idea it is to make law affecting everyone on the chance that someone will react badly, when the alternative is the perpetuation of ongoing abuse and the diminishment of the family, as well as the failure to protect young girls from predatory males.
And consider the aborted baby, who choose none of this, but was unjustly killed to allow someone to hide from their deeds.
UPDATE: Current law contains a preposterous contradiction.
If a public official or health care worker, teacher or counselor, school staff member or adminstrator detects any hint of abuse of a minor, that person is required by law to report it to proper authorities (with significant penalities for non-compliance). That “hint” could be a suspicious looking bruise, a comment that suggests sexual abuse by a “step-father” or “uncle” or “family friend”, etc. Yet when the proof of sexual abuse of a minor is presented in the person of a pregnant teenager, the question is often not even asked, and the parents are not required to be consulted before an abortion is done, if the victimized girl is unwilling to tell them herself. It can happen again and again with the same teenager, and no one is required to follow up on who is making her pregnant.
For every case of a teenage girl who really doesn’t dare tell her parents for fear of abuse (certainly rare, and for which Prop 4 offers other remedies), there are hundreds or thousands who SHOULD be telling their parents, so that their parents can protect them adequately, advise them appropriately, pursue legal action if indicated, etc.
The opponents of Prop 4 don’t care that parents may be unable to properly protect or advise their daughters, under current law. They care only that the most extreme pro-abortion laws in the world remain unchanged, so that the “right” to an abortion, on demand, for any reason, at any time in the pregnancy, remains sacrosanct. For them, abortion isn’t just a “right”, it is virtually a “rite”.
It remains to be seen if the voters will be fooled by the deceptive ads of Prop 4 opponents, implying that any noticeable number of young girls will be endangered by telling their parents, and will have no other recourse.
