Guaranteed Healthcare

While the ongoing dramas of the presidential race continue to unfold, regional legislation is beginning to trickle down to voters in individual states. In California, four initiatives have already qualified for the November 4 ballot, the most recent of which may seem a bit familiar to California voters. 

That’s because the proposition, which would enforce a 48-hour waiting period and parental notification for teen women seeking abortions, has already appeared on California ballots twice in the past three years, failing both times. Seemingly unwilling to concede the fight, anti-choice activists have pushed the issue a third time by submitting nearly 695,000 signatures.

In 2005, it was called Prop 73 and it narrowly failed with 47.2 percent of the vote. In 2006, it shambled back from the dead as Prop 85 until a diminished approval of 45.8 percent sent it back to the grave. 

Like the villain in a bad horror film, this legislation simply refuses to stay dead.  

Opponents to Prop 85 effectively argued in 2006 that the issue at hand is one of patient confidentiality, and highlighted that behind proponents’ scare tactics, the reality of teen pregnancy in California rendered parental notification legislation not only draconian, but irrelevant. Teen pregnancy in California fell by a whopping 40 percent in the 1990s, while the number of teens seeking abortions fell by 45 percent. Activists claim these numbers are a result of positive sex education which encourages responsibility, contraceptives, and safe sex instead of promoting a single-item agenda of abstinence. 

In fact, the ACLU reported, studies from the 35 states that have instituted parental notification laws have shown that such legislation has no impact on teen pregnancy or abortion rates.  Any abortion legislation that mandates parental notification runs the additional risk of exposing teen women to abusive or life-threatening scenarios. In the process of attempting to force communication upon families, such legislation not only criminalizes but exposes victims of incest and rape. Even women who have not been sexually abused can still face severe and traumatic confrontations with family members if forced to divulge that they have been sexually active. 

So, let’s review: this as-of-yet-unnumbered proposition aims to regulate a procedure that has already naturally declined by dramatic numbers in the state. Given 35 instances of similar legislation, it would likely not affect or impact the rate of teen abortion in the state. It would sully the concept of patient confidentiality and deny reproductive autonomy to young women. Additionally, it would put young women at risk of physical, sexual, or emotional violence in an especially vulnerable position.  

So what exactly does it accomplish? 

That’s the real question to ask. It is a foot in the door to reversing legislation guaranteeing a woman’s choice, no matter what her age. What is especially insidious about such legislation is that it sneaks anti-choice footholds into laws under the guise of parental notification. The 2006 version of this legislation actually included the definition of life beginning at conception. If Prop 85 had passed, it would have established a legal precedent for persecuting women of any age who chose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, or, for that matter, took any actions that could be deemed as potentially harmful to a fetus. An act as simply as drinking a cup of coffee or taking an aspirin would have a completely new set of ramifications, even if women were as yet unaware that they were pregnant. 

While it’s important to preserve privacy, autonomy, and dignity for teen women, there is so much more at stake when it comes to parental notification laws. These laws affect all women, regardless of age. When November rolls around, let’s be sure to kill this thing once and for all… and make sure the door on that crypt is closed tight.

In closing, I'd like to refer you to a piece written by Waldo L. Fielding, a retired gynecologist who speaks of his early training in New York City in the days before Roe v. Wade. Fielding recalls in horrifying and tragic detail the aftereffects of the many illegal abortions he witnessed, but it is perhaps his parting sentiments that are most relevant here:

"It is important to remember that Roe v. Wade did not mean that abortions could be performed. They have always been done, dating from ancient Greek days.

What Roe said was that ending a pregnancy could be carried out by medical personnel, in a medically accepted setting, thus conferring on women, finally, the full rights of first-class citizens — and freeing their doctors to treat them as such."