California Voters Will Consider Parental Notification on Abortion in November

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 28, 2006   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

California Voters Will Consider Parental Notification on Abortion in November Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 28, 2006

Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) — California voters will once again determine whether parents there can have the right to know when their minor teenager daughter is considering having an abortion. A petition drive to get the parental notification initiative on the November ballot was successful and certified by the Secretary of State.

The measure is expected to receive a proposition number next week and then a multimillion dollar campaign by supporters and opponents is expected to begin.

"We collected over one million signatures in just over three months and from every one of California’s 58 counties," Paul Laubacher of the Parents’ Right to Know group told LifeNews.com in a statement it provided.

"This shows the wide public support for requiring a doctor to notify a parent before performing an abortion on a minor daughter — who may be 12 or 13 years old or even younger," Laubacher added.

Laubacher, an intensive care unit nurse and father of two daughters who resides in Sacramento, said abortion should be no different from other medical procedures where parents are routinely both told about the procedure and required to approve it.

“Certainly a mother or father would want to be at least notified before any invasive surgical or medical procedure is performed by an unknown doctor on their minor child," he explained. It’s just common sense and good public health policy to protect the health and safety of young girls."

The proposal largely mirrors the wording of Proposition 73, which California voters defeated last year by a 52.6 percent to 47.4 percent vote.

However organizers say the measure will fare better in a normal election year. Last year voters only considered several ballot measures supported by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. All of them went down to defeat, but Proposition 73 received the most votes.

"With so many candidates and such a diversity of issues on the ballot, it is expected that a much more representative group of California voters will turn out to vote compared to the very skewed turnout for the unpopular [special election]," the group said in its statement.

Last year, Planned Parenthood spent $4.5 million to defeat the pro-life proposal and supporters received the most support from James Holman, the publisher of a San Diego weekly newspaper and several Catholic papers.

This year, Holman has given the parental notification campaign $2.2 million to get on the ballot and last year he spent $1.1 million to launch the Proposition 73 campaign.

In a change from 2005, the ballot measure would not include language saying abortion causes the "death of an unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born" and removes reporting requirements on how many waivers judges grant to teens in supposedly abusive home situations.

ACTION: Visit the web sites and lend your support today. Visit www.parentsright2know.org or www.YESon73.net for more information.