Opponents Lead Spending on Parental Notification Measure

Spending by opponents of a parental notification measure likely will exceed expenditures by the initiative's supporters, the Orange County Register reports. Proposition 85 would require parental notification before an abortion is performed on an unmarried minor, with provisions for a judicial waiver.

Planned Parenthood and its affiliates to date have contributed about $2.3 million of the $2.9 million the campaign against the measure has collected. According to the Register, opponents of a similar measure in the 2005 special election spent about $5 million to defeat it and "could do so again" in the campaign against Proposition 85.

Meanwhile, San Diego Reader publisher James Holman is the main contributor to the campaign in favor of the measure, having lent the effort about $2.2 million. The California ProLife Council, the Campaign for Children and Families, the California Catholic Conference and other abortion rights opponents that supported last year's ballot initiative also are expected to support Proposition 85 (Orange County Register, 9/27).

Proposition 85 is the "sort of requirement that should be written into the state constitution," a San Diego Union-Tribune editorial states, noting that the California constitution currently does not include such a provision. "It's just good common sense, and a way to balance the right of a minor to seek an abortion with the right of her parent or guardian to know about it" (San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/28).