Today's awesome Los Angeles Times headline: "No, No, No, No, No, No, No, No." California voters have rejected eight out of eight proposals in a special election engineered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- including, by a narrow margin, a measure that would have mandated parental notification for minors seeking abortions.
So, phew. I'd like to think that maybe, just maybe, the $50 kabillion spent on the election wasn't all a big waste. Let's hope that just a few of those dollars did indeed go, if indirectly, toward undoing the lies that have been peddled -- by antiabortion groups and "pro-choice" politicians -- about parental involvement laws. Such laws, nice as they sound, do not promote "communication" or "teen safety." They're a cynical means of chipping away at the rights conferred by Roe v. Wade, and of stigmatizing abortion in the public perception. And they put teens in danger of abusive parents, of delays in healthcare, of risky trips across state lines.
For more about teens and parental involvement laws, see the brand-new -- and chilling --report from the Alan Guttmacher Institute: "Teenagers' Access to Confidential Reproductive Health Services." Also see Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood. Gulp.
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