Angelides, Sen. Boxer Say They Oppose Proposition 73
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and California Treasurer Phil Angelides on Monday announced their opposition to Proposition 73, a measure on the Nov. 8 special election ballot that would alter the state constitution to require health care providers to inform a parent or guardian 48 hours before performing an abortion on an unmarried minor, the AP/San Jose Mercury News reports.
Angelides, speaking at a news conference at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate said, "This proposition is designed to make it difficult for young women to get the medical attention they need at a very difficult time."
Boxer said the proposition's language is politically loaded and "sets it up to overturn Roe v. Wade" in California. She noted that the amendment defines abortion as a procedure that "causes the death of the unborn child" (Munoz, AP/San Jose Mercury News, 10/10).
In related news, opponents of Proposition 73 have raised more than $1.5 million, with about half of that money contributed by "a handful of prominent" Silicon Valley residents, the Mercury News reports.
Kathy Kneer, head of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, on Monday said she will use the funds to launch a statewide advertising campaign (Osterom, San Jose Mercury News, 10/11).
Proposition 73 opponents say parental notification could put some minors at risk for abuse or cause young women to delay medical attention. PPAC, the California Family Health Council, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern and Southern California and the Abortion Rights Action League oppose the measure.
According to Margaret Crosby, an attorney with the ACLU-NC, "California has had a pioneering and progressive tradition of furthering reproductive rights. Passage of Proposition 73 would be a major blow to the reproductive rights movement nationally" (Ainsworth, San Diego Union Tribune, 10/10).
Proponents of Proposition 73 say parents and guardians should participate in minors' medical decisions. Newspaper publisher James Holman, Dominoes Pizza founder Tom Monaghan and winemaker Don Sebastiani have led the fundraising efforts in support of Proposition 73 (Hecht, Sacramento Bee, 10/9).
Proposition 73 "adds to the court system's burdens, threatens to apply only to poorer teens and introduces troubling language" to the state's constitution, a Los Angeles Times editorial states. According to the editorial, California "already has experienced steeper declines in teen pregnancy, birth and abortion rates than the national average" without a parental notification law (Los Angeles Times, 10/9).
California residents who "truly care about the health and safety of pregnant teens should vote 'No'" on Proposition 73, a Bee editorial states.
According to the editorial, pregnancy is a "time-limited circumstance, where a decision should not be postponed," and "[d]elays of days or a week can turn an early stage abortion into a second-trimester abortion, with medical consequences, or force teens to bear children they are not prepared to care for" (Sacramento Bee, 10/11).
Additional information on Proposition 73 is available online.