Letters to the Editor

This letter is associated with the following article:
Why I'm voting for California Proposition 85.
  • Many posters to this article

    make good points about parental notification laws. Yes, it may be silly to try to legislate what a girl tells or doesn't tell her parents. Yes, many judges interpret the bypass provisions in weird and arbitrary ways. Yes, the notification requirement may make girls give parents information they're not responsible enough to deal with.

    All of these things and more can be true, but all miss the salient point - this is a political issue and pro-choice people must address it as such. Since Casey, virtually every abortion law is a political - not a constitutional - issue. The fact that the aforesaid points have some validity does not mean that they sell to the average voter and that's who you need to appeal to. Pro-choice people need to learn how to do politics (the way they did in SD this year), because that is where the fight is.

    You can be Simon-pure and lose every round or you can do the hard work of lobbying state legislatures, putting referendums on the ballot, etc. If you do the latter, abortion rights will not be what you might like them to be, but a certain core will be preserved.

    And that's as well as pro-choice can do at this point.