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On November 7th, California residents will vote again on a Parental Notification Law: Proposition 85. I'll be voting "no."
When I was in high school, my mother discovered that I was sexually active when she read my diary. She showed it to my father, and right before I went up to sing a solo in church she told me that she'd told him. My father didn't speak to me for two years after that.
When I consider Parental Notification Laws, I think back and try to be really honest about what I would have done as a teenager if I'd become pregnant and been unable to get an abortion without parental notification.
Let's go back one more beat. My mother was a mom who talked openly to me about sex at an early age. When I was ready to have sex, she wanted me to come to her. So I did. When I was 15 years old. And she freaked out.
But then, the guy I'd expected to didn't ask me to the prom, and I told my mom I'd wait to have sex, and that was the end of that. When I did have sex, I didn't go to her, and once the cat was out of the bag - well, our communication pretty much dissolved completely.
Faced with a pregnancy, I would have turned to my boyfriend, my friends. Maybe a teacher, although I would have suspected that that avenue would lead back to my parents. I know I would have wanted to keep it private. And I definitely knew when I became sexually active that if I did become pregnant despite my best efforts, I would get an abortion.
I doubt I would have let someone give me an abortion who wasn't a doctor, but I might have taken a pill. I definitely would have gone out of state if I needed to, somehow. Now that I live in Southern California, I think, yeah, as a pregnant teen with a parental notification law, I definitely would have considered going to a doctor in Mexico. There's so many ways for a teen to lie to a parent - even simply disappearing and reappearing and getting in trouble for that would have seemed a better option than telling my parents I was pregnant.
Here's the thing. If you get pregnant, if your body is at that point, then nature has just decided for now and for always that you have decisions to make. Parental notification laws chill me to the bone, because I was a fairly worldly, middle-class teen, and I know I would have found another way. Maybe I could have navigated judicial bypass, but my ultimate goal would have been to get my abortion quickly, so any delay would have made that option less appealing.
Plus, how absurd is it to have to ask a judge for PERMISSION to get an abortion??? That thought alone would have kept me out of the courtroom. The thought of being pregnant and not being able to get an abortion without involving my parents... Well, you know what, the feeling is rage. I would have been enraged, and I would have done whatever I needed to do to get an abortion.
If I'm truly honest, I'll admit to you that if all else failed, I probably would have run away, contemplated suicide... Well, those aren't too far from my teen reality as it is. Point being, not all teens can or will talk to their parents about abortion. And a law isn't going to make them.
I was fortunate to sit in on an educational conference call today with Margaret Crosby, an attorney for the ACLU. It was hosted by Stefania Pomponi Butler of CityMama, and she did a great job writing the call up. She also has another post on Prop 85 here. I would urge you to visit her posts for in-depth discussion of the specific issues brought up by parental notification in general and Prop 85 specifically. There's also a No on Prop 85 website with a great facts page, "Why should you vote NO on 85?"
Here's some points that really jump out for me:
- Parental Notification Laws have the effect of delaying and obstructing access to abortion. Prop 85 requires a notification be sent certified mail to the parents and once it is received, a pregnant teen must wait another 48 hours to have an abortion.
- Judicial bypass requires a court date. At 35, if I want an abortion, I just make an
