Opinion: The other Sarah--the one who doesn’t exist

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The Times editorial board took the backers of Proposition 4 to task on Thursday. There was nothing to like about this (third) attempt to force pregnant girls to have their parents notified before they could have an abortion, from the board’s point of view, but an extra thing to dislike was the misleading heart-tugging campaign for ‘Sarah’s Law,’ supposedly named for a 15-year-old girl who would have been saved had Proposition 4 been in place. Except her name wasn’t Sarah, she didn’t live in California, her case was 14 years ago, and she wouldn’t have been covered by such a law because she was in a common-law marriage. In fact, she already had a 1-year-old child.

It’s always interesting to talk at length about these things with the people who have promulgated the stories, which I did with Katie Short, who has been a visible spokeswoman for the campaign. Short told me that the campaign hadn’t known the girl’s name was Jammie, not Sarah, though she also said it was understandable why the campaign would use the name Sarah, because people wouldn’t know how to pronounce the real name.

Short also acknowledged that Jammie probably wasn’t the best case to use, but she’s still disputing whether the girl was in a common-law marriage. That was what her boyfriend claimed in court, she said, but Jammie hadn’t used his last name as hers when she went to the doctor, which Short saw as convincing evidence that she didn’t consider herself married. (NOW might have something to say about that one.) It’s not known if they even lived together, Short said.

Public documents tell a different tale. The two had taken out a marriage license, with their parents’ permission. They list the same residence on it. And Jammie’s death certificate lists her as married, and lists the same boy as her husband.

Maybe the campaign botched its research, but when all this was challenged in court, you’d think they would have withdrawn the name and the story on their website.