Teen Safety? Really??

Campaign for Teen Safety. That's the ironic name of Planned Parenthood of California's organization to stop the passage of a parental consent law, Prop. 73. Too bad Planned Parenthood just started to want to keep teens safe after 18-year-old Holly Patterson died in 2003 when she received a RU-486 abortion at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate.

Some excerpts from their arguments against Prop. 73:

And sadly, some teens live in troubled homes. The family might be having serious problems, or parents might be abusive, or a relative may even have caused the pregnancy.

THIS LAW PUTS THOSE VULNERABLE TEENAGERS – THOSE WHO MOST NEED PROTECTION – IN HARM'S WAY, OR FORCES THEM TO GO TO COURT. Think about it: the girl is already terrified, she's pregnant, her family is abusive or worse. She's not going to be marching up to a judge in a crowded courthouse. She doesn't need a judge, she needs a counselor.

Yes, that's right. Teenagers who live in troubled homes with abusive parents don't need a judge, they need an abortion counselor. They need someone whose main objective is to make sure they have an abortion, not an objective judge who hopefully has their best interests at heart and might have the ability to help them with their living situation. Because we all know that abortion solves problems like abusive parents, incest and troubled homes.

Mandatory notification laws make scared, pregnant teens who can't go to their parents do scary things, instead of going to the doctor to get the medical help they need. In other states, when parental notification laws make teenagers choose between talking with parents or having illegal or unsafe abortions, some teens choose the illegal abortion – even though it is dangerous.

And their evidence for these assertions?..... Cue the chirping crickets. Michigan has had a parental consent law for years and I've never heard of any teenager dying from an illegal, back-alley abortion. The only teenager to die from abortion in recent years was 15-year-old Tamia Russell who died after a "safe and legal" abortion performed at an abortion clinic in Southfield. She got around the parental consent law by showing a relative's ID to the abortion clinic staff.

Besides not having a bunch of dead teenagers, Michigan has also seen a large decrease in teen pregnancy and teen abortions since the passage of our parental consent law in the early 90's in spite of the testimony from the usual suspects that our parental consent law would lead to an increase in out-of-wedlock births, etc.

BUT IF – FOR WHATEVER REASON – OUR DAUGHTERS CAN'T OR THEY WON'T COME TO US, WE MUST MAKE SURE THEY GET SAFE, PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ATTENTION AND QUALITY COUNSELING FROM CARING DOCTORS AND NURSES.

That's odd. How can we (I'm assuming they mean parents) make sure our children get such great "medical" attention if we have no clue they're getting "medical" attention in the first place?

As parents, we want to know when our daughters face a decision like this so we can be helpful and supportive. But also, as parents, our daughters' safety is more important than our desire to be informed.

This attempt at an argument falls flat on its face the second any parent realizes that the safety of their daughter is strongly related to how informed they are to what is going on in their daughter's life. Planned Parenthood would have parents believe that a teenager's safety is what they're looking after. Hopefully, parents in California, will ask Monty Patterson want he thinks about that.