Abortion Politics Won’t Help Families

A narrow vote of the California Supreme Court this month has set in motion what promises to be a turbulent preelection season a year from now. The campaigns on at least two of the likely ballot measures will be emotional, loud and divisive, drowning out the small voices of the very people all sides claim they want to protect: underage pregnant teens.

By a 4-3 majority, the court declared unconstitutional a state law requiring parental or court consent for minors to get abortions. (The law, passed in 1987 and immediately challenged in the courts, was never enforced.)

The right-to-life movement promises a double-barreled electoral response: an initiative aimed at changing the state Constitution and a separate effort to throw two of the justices out of their jobs.

Chief Justice Ronald M. George, in an opinion joined by Justice Ming W, Chin, ruled that the parental consent law violated privacy protections that were voted into the state Constitution in 1972. Next year’s initiative will propose to limit the privacy rights of teenage girls, on the grounds that parents have the more important right to tell their kids what to do.

Mike Spence of the California ProLife Council says Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren has agreed to actively support the initiative, and Lungren’s campaign for governor next year may add luster to the cause.

Opponents will raise the ante by claiming that parental rights are only a smoke screen for the real motive behind the initiative: opposition to abortion itself. Therese Wilson of Planned Parenthood-Golden Gate in San Francisco, a successful appellant in this case, says parental consent initiatives were defeated in other states when voters were persuaded that abortion was the real issue. She sees an opportunity for California voters to reassert their preference for abortion rights.

The second campaign will attempt to unseat George and Chin, whose names will appear on the 1998 ballot for routine confirmation. Pro-lifers like Republican State Sen. Richard Mountjoy--himself a candidate for lieutenant governor--claim that George and Chin acted “politically” on behalf of pro-choice Gov. Pete Wilson, who appointed them to the court. The justices’ defenders argue that the attack on George and Chin, being based on only one case, constitutes a threat to judicial independence.

The two campaigns will create risks and opportunities for various players, but before voices begin to be raised, it’s worth hearing about the pressures on those with the most at stake. Emily Hodgson is a 16-year-old Santa Monica High School student who volunteers for Teen Line, a national hot line run by kids so that other kids have somebody to talk to.

“I listen to kids all the time,” she says. “They’re pregnant and they don’t know what to do. Parental consent is a great idea, but the problem is that so many parents can’t do the right thing for their kids and can’t support them because their own feelings are so mixed up and they’re not entirely focused on their child.

“Some kids tell their parents they’re pregnant and they get kicked out of the house. They don’t know what their options are. But needing an option doesn’t mean they want to get an abortion behind their parents’ back. Some kids have the baby, and their parents take it away from them.”

Lack of consensus about the relationship between parents, their children and the state has produced a morass of contradictions in California law. Minors must have parental consent for drivers’ licenses and body piercing, but not for treating venereal disease, drug abuse or complications from pregnancy. Serious debate next year could help to clarify public policy. It also could enlighten parents about the real health care needs of their children. It might even reduce unwanted pregnancies, the number of babies disposed of in trash cans and perhaps abortions as well.

But, while all sides might agree that those are worthy objectives, achieving them via the 1998 state ballot campaign is hardly likely. The combination of emotion, ideology and conflicting ambitions is more likely to produce the harsh rhetoric that hardens attitudes and drives people further apart--whatever the outcome of the initiative campaign or the fate of Justices George and Chin.

That would be a sad irony, considering that so much in resources will be spent ostensibly in the interests of young girls, as if one of the most complex dilemmas any human being will face can be reduced to competing campaign slogans.