Roundup: Parental Notification Measure Leads in Polls; What If Roe Fell?

California's Proposition 4 is leading in the polls; Indiana counties develop a new abortion restriction strategy; new sex ed policy developed for Gloucester; a conservative legal scholar looks at what would happen if Roe fell.

California’s Proposition 4 Leads in Polls

A new poll in California suggests that Proposition 4, a ballot initiative that would require doctors to notify parents before teenagers have abortions, is favored by a slim majority.  Forty-nine percent of California voters favor the amendment, forty-one oppose it and ten percent are undecided.  The Mercury News reports that similar ballot measures failed in 2005 and 2006 – which also led in the polls prior to election day – but described a "stronger base of support" for the measure this year.

The ballot measure would not allow parents to block a teen’s access to abortion, but requires doctors to notify parents in writing of their daughter’s intention to seek abortion care.  If the teenager says she lives in an abusive home, another adult can be alerted, but the doctor is then required to notify authorities of the abuse.  That’s not the right approach for Fran Linkin, of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in San Jose.  "We want teens in abusive homes to be protected," Linkin said. "If she knows she has to come in and notify her parents, then she will put off care completely. She won’t come in if she knows word will get back that will put her in more danger when she goes back to that very same door."

 

New Abortion Restriction Strategy in Indiana

Opponents of legal abortion have found a variety of ways to place unnecessary hurdles around the provision of abortion, to drive abortion providers out of business and to make abortion less accessible.  Now in Indiana, two counties have passed laws stating that doctors who perform abortion must have the authority to admit patients to hospitals.  USA Today reports that, "The ordinances ensure that women with complications after abortions can quickly get medical care, he says, but he hopes they also make abortions harder to get."  So far neither of the two counties with such a law – Vanderburgh and Dubois County – has an abortion clinic.  But, said Commissioner Larry Vollmer in Dubois, "We want to get out ahead of it where we can prevent" one from opening.

Eleanor Bader reported on these so-called TRAP laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) for Rewire here.

 

New Sex Ed Policy for Gloucester

The Gloucester School superintendent has developed a new working draftVIDEO: Comprehensive Sex Ed vs. Abstinence-OnlyVIDEO: Comprehensive Sex Ed vs. Abstinence-Only on sexuality education policy, which allows for education both covering abstinence and appropriate use of contraception.  It would also maintain the day care center for students with children.  It would give parents three options for the distribution of contraception to their children by school health centers: at the student’s request; with parental notification; and not under any circumstances.  But the Gloucester Daily Times remains frustrated that the policy has been drafted without community input.  "while the experts have weighed in, and both the superintendent and School Committee have provided a very good starting point, school officials must recognize that the most important input – that of the community itself – is still to come."

 

What If Roe Fell? 

If state laws suddenly determined the legality of abortion in each state, where would abortion be legal?  Pro-choice organizations have attempted to answer this question, but now the special counsel to the Thomas More Society, Paul Benjamin Linton, has answered this question for anti-choicers.  In a review in Time, David Van Biema notes that Linton’s close examination of state laws leads him to conclude that abortion would only remain legal in 12 states, not the 20 that pro-choice organizations often assume. 

On the Millennium Development Goals, What Would McCain Do?

Jane Roberts is worried about what a McCain administration would mean for certain critical Millennium Development Goals – goals to cut child mortality, improve maternal health, to provide universal access to reproductive health, and to combat HIV/AIDS. The next president will have to provide considerable leadership on foreign aid, writes Roberts, as Americans may be hesitant to provide development assistance in the wake of our own economic crisis: "With our present financial crisis, with our 9 trillion dollar deficit
rising at least by another trillion, the American people may be
reluctant to increase ODA (overseas development assistance) or even to
keep it at present levels. This will present a challenge to the next
President to educate the American people about our true role in the
world."