Bid for Abortion Limits Initiative Is Dropped

A proposed state constitutional amendment to require parental consent for minors’ abortions--a law struck down by the state Supreme Court--will not gain enough signatures to qualify as a November ballot initiative, said Brian Johnston, executive director of the California ProLife Council.

He said Tuesday that backers will shift their sights to the June 2000 ballot and could start the process next month.

The initiative needed 693,230 valid signatures by March 16 to qualify for the November election. Johnston said he did not know how many signatures had been gathered, but there was agreement at a meeting of sponsors Monday that they did not have enough time to reach the goal.

Calling the court’s ruling four months ago “callously political and dilatory,” Johnston said waiting until 2000 “allows us to assess where things are at, to get more wind in the sails.”

“We’ll be ready in the year 2000 if they qualify it then,” said David Alois, electoral legal director of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, which opposes such an amendment. He said the organization will continue its “efforts to educate the public about . . . how these laws operate in other states, what impact it has on teenagers and families.”

The abortion issue could become part of the 1998 governor’s race, in light of opposition to the medical procedure by Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the presumptive Republican nominee. It is also expected to be the flash point of the first organized campaign against state Supreme Court justices since 1986. The ProLife Council and its allies plan to oppose Chief Justice Ronald George and Justice Ming Chin for their votes to overturn the consent law.

The initiative would restore a law that was passed by the Legislature in 1987 but never took effect, requiring an unmarried woman under 18 to have a parent’s consent for an abortion or to persuade a judge that she was mature enough to decide for herself or that an abortion was in her best interest.