 No on Prop 4
This fall, California voters will be asked to amend the state constitution to ban abortions for young women under 18 unless their parents are notified. California voters defeated two previous attempts to pass a similar law in 2005 & 2006. However, polls show that Prop 4 will be even harder to defeat this year because of its more deceptive language. Prop 4 is intrusive, dangerous and misleading.
Prop 4 Endangers Young Women’s Lives & Allows Government Intrusion into a Private Decision
In states where these kinds of laws are enforced, desperate young women – forced to seek back-alley abortions – have been injured. Some have even died.
Prop. 4 would amend the California State Constitution to:
- Ban abortions for young women (under 18) unless her parents are notified in writing by the physician.
- Mandate a 48-hour waiting period after a young woman’s parents are notified she is seeking an abortion, which would delay and obstruct access to timely professional advice and medical care.
- Force a young woman who is already a victim of rape, incest or family violence, to officially report a crime and/or officially report her family to the police if wants to notify another adult family member other than her parents. Many victims will not come forward for critical medical treatment if they are forced to report the crime.
- Force a young woman to go before a judge in a court of law – who may oppose abortion -- to determine if she is ‘mature’ enough to deserve a safe, legal abortion without notifying her parents. The judicial bypass process is detrimental to a woman’s health, because it further delays access to medical treatment, which increases the risk of complications from delayed or second-trimester procedures.
- Make it a CRIME to falsify information in order for a young woman to obtain a safe and legal abortion without notifying a parent.
Prop 4 is Deceptive – No Law Can Mandate Family Communication
- Most young women do inform their parents about the decision to have an abortion.
- The most frequent reasons young women cite for not telling their parents are belief that the knowledge will damage their relationship, the fear that it will escalate into conflict or coercion, and the desire to protect a vulnerable parent from stress and disappointment.
- The risks of violence, abuse, coercion, unresolved conflict, and rejection are enormous in dysfunctional families when parents are informed of a pregnancy against a young woman’s considered judgment.
No on Prop 8
If passed, Prop 8 would amend the California State Constitution to take away the right of same-gender couples to marry.
Prop 8 would take away Marriage Equality in California
The right to marry the person you love is a fundamental civil right. Proposition 8 would take away this fundamental freedom from same-gender couples.
- Prop 8 would eliminate fairness and equality in California and restrict access to one of the most basic of all civil rights – the right to determine who you marry.
- It’s hard to believe, but it was just twenty years ago that the United States Supreme Court finally struck down all bans on interracial marriage
(Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)).
- This year, in another historic decision, the California Supreme Court struck down a state ban on same-gender marriage.
- Now that California is a safe -haven for Marriage Equality in this country, we won’t go back!
Sponsored by the Feminist Majority Foundation No on 4 & 8 |
