California's Proposition 4: It Seems Like It's a Good Idea, But It's Not

Several people have asked me about my position on Proposition 4 and wanted more details about why I'm opposed to it. On the face of it, this seems like a good idea. What parent wouldn't want to know if his or her daughter was pregnant and thinking of having an abortion? Sounds good. But it just isn't that simple.

This proposition is a replica of Prop 73 launched in 2005 and Prop 85 in 2006. So, this is third time in three consecutive elections that proponents have sought to restrict access to abortion by a teenager. California voters have rejected the first two attempts, but some groups don't give up easily. My hunch is that they don't have close working knowledge of the lives of marginalized teens.

Here are the details of the proposed legislation and why it's not in the best interest of teen safety:

Prop 4 would amend the California Constitution to require that a state parental notification document must be used to notify the parents of a teenager of her intent to have an abortion. Or it could impose court hearings and delays before a pregnant teen under 18 may obtain an abortion. In this way, Prop 4 resembles Props 73 and 85.

But Prop 4 goes much beyond that. It would dramatically expand the liability of physicians who care for teenagers and authorizes lawsuits against them as long as decades after an abortion is performed. So, part of the purpose of this proposed legislation appears to be driving the providers of service out of business.

A physician, in my local paper, The Sacramento Bee, wrote in her letter to the editor: "As a physician who specializes in adolescent health, I am grateful to Peter Schrag for exposing the dangers of Proposition 4 ("Parental notification: Who's the real target?” Oct.7). I treat marginalized youths in Sacramento and conduct research on violence and teen health. Safe, confidential care is essential for pregnant teens, especially those in unhealthy relationships. Under Proposition 4, the pregnant girls I see may not even seek care at all."

She continued: "Doctors recognize that parents are important supports for their adolescents, and we encourage our patients to communicate with their parents when possible. Unfortunately, not all teens have the advantage of parents who care. For them, the open door to confidential care is the only avenue to guarantee their safety. By mandating parental notification and destroying confidentiality, Proposition 4 would shut out those teens who need us the most. Proponents say they are targeting sexual predators, yet they would remove the mechanism that allows us to identify abuse among the most vulnerable teens."

Prop 4 mandates a path that has hazards to teenagers - some of whom live in very dysfunctional families. These are the teens who cannot safely notify their parents or obtain court orders. Proponents state that a teenager living in an abusive home may request that notification be sent to a substitute relative over 21. But the conditions of this option are severe. To satisfy the critiera of this path, the teen must first write out a history of charges against her parents and provide the document to the physician. The physician then must send this written history to law enforcement and send the state's abortion notice to the designated substitute relative. In addition, the physician must include a letter saying that the parents have been reported to a law enforcement agency.

This really does not protect the pregnant teenager. If law enforcement pursues the report or the substitute relative calls the parents, the parents will find out about the teenager's allegations against them, her pregnancy, and her abortion.

This set of "choices" would cause some teenagers to turn to dangerous self-induced abortions or worse scenarios to avoid notification or this court process.

Of course, parents want to participate in their daughters' lives. Most pregnant teens tell one or both parents. But government cannot mandate good family dynamics and communication. That's something that must start long before a teenager thinks about abortion.

Teenagers who think that they cannot safely talk to their parents about their pregnancy tend to have good reasons for not revealing this sensitive news to their parents. The most common are:

• Their family may already be in crisis.


• They anticipate that their parents would force them to have the baby.


• Their parents are violent.


• A family relative has caused the pregnancy.

I wish that parental involvement laws could transform abusive, dysfunctional families into supportive ones. They don't. They just complicate the lives of pregnant teens when they are in a very rough time in their lives already.

Even teens who have their lives pretty together would have a difficult time following all these steps, not to mention the difficulty of having such personal information documented and discussed in court.

According to the ACLU of Northern California, the proportion of second trimester abortions for females under 18 increases in states with similar parental involvement laws. That is an undesirable side effect of that legislation. In some states, court clerks lecture minors about morals and judges refuse to hear abortion cases or they deny the petitions for personal ideological reasons.

The ACLU of Northern California spent 10 years examining the data of other states with parental involvement laws. They filed a lawsuit and the California Supreme Court ruled that this evidence overwhelmingly showed that these laws were dangerous and unconstitutional. Proposition 4 attempts to overturn the Supreme Court ruling and write this into the California Constitution.

The proponents of Prop 4 probably think that they are fostering parent-child communication. They also probably have not had much personal contact with the very group of teenagers that this law would impact the most. Otherwise, they would realize that Prop 4 is designed to inject more stress and chaos into the life of a young female who is already overwhelmed. Chances are, the families most affected by Prop 4 are not sitting at their computers reading this blog and contemplating the pros and cons of this potential legislation. Chances are, they have bigger fish to fry.

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• WebMD Video: Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
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Political Views of a Sex Therapist

Saturday I sat in front of a grocery store for several hours with a retired elementary school principal and former teacher. Why would I do that? She and I were registering voters - some who had moved since the last election and some for the very first time, including a woman in her fifties.

I've always voted in every election, but this is the first time I've been politically active by volunteering. I'll make no secret of it. I will be voting Democratic this November. Show me a sex therapist, educator or researcher and I'll show you someone who will be voting Democratic.

Republicans have never been friendly to the paths of professionals like me. Instead of facilitating research or broadening easy availability of mental health care, they've taken away funds (think Reagan and the closing of many mental health facilities) or offered us tactics for decreasing the number of unwanted pregnancies that simply don't work (think virginity pledges and sex education courses that teach only abstinence until marriage). The Republican Vice Presidential candidate's own daughter's pregnancy is evidence of how well this works. "Kinder and gentler" have been empty words.

Yet, it's interesting that I have had quite a few politically conservative clients in my practice here in the Sacramento area -- unlike my years in San Francisco where you'd be hard put to find one. My conservatives here have enjoyed the benefits of my work despite being philosophically quite different from me at some deep levels.

I usually learn of their political positions quite by accident or inference. It certainly isn't a question that I consider necessary to ask in order to be of help to them. My aim is to help them get to where they want to get. It is their agenda to set, yet they are seeking my set of skills that are intertwined with how I view the world.

I could not, however, possibly help the range of people that I do if I did not hold a progressive viewpoint and see life from a liberal position. In fact, a good number of the sexual problems that bring my clients to my office stem from holding rigid views and being "antigressive" (a word I'm making up here to be the opposite of "progressive").

In addition to the horse race that seems uncomfortably close for President, California has two propositions that I oppose: Proposition 4 and Proposition 8.

Prop 4 puts certain young women into a jackpot, a horrible set of circumstances made even worse. These young women are the ones who are pregnant and live in a family that is closed to communication about accurate sex information and who are very punitive. The majority of young women would communicate with their adult family members if they were pregnant unintentionally. That's because they have somewhat open communications within their family. Would it be an easy communication? Not likely. But, would it happen? Most likely. Most young women do discuss difficult circumstances with their parents without legislation!

Prop 4 insists that those who are not in such an emotionally and physically safe family must tell their adults anyway or go through incredibly difficult set of legal maneuvers. Prop 4 punishes those young women when that's just what they don't need. Legislation is not going to straighten out the communication problems in these types of dysfunctional families. Legislation will not protect these young women from emotional or physical abuse in these families. It just further traumatizes them.

How can families then get the outcome of this legislation without passing this legislation? By being a family that talks about all types of life issues with open attitudes. This doesn't mean that they have no rules. It also doesn't mean that they have no consequences for behaviors. It means that parents be "askable" parents, that they're the first ones their kids turn to because they know they'll get reasonable responses that rest on accurate information. That's what would lead a pregnant young woman to tell her parents about her dilemma -- not legislation.

Yesterday when a man in his seventies was filling out his form to change his address, he told me a story that concerned Prop 8, one designed to overturn the decision of the California Supreme court permitting marriage between two same sex people. A woman had come to his door and asked how he was going to vote on it. The man said without hesitation, "I'm voting against it." She said, "Why? Are you gay?" He said that he was married for a long time and was currently a widower. "But why would you vote against this then?" she asked. "Because they should have the right to do so also."

I smiled to myself when he told this story. Deep down this man understood the benefit of having a long-term committed relationship -- regardless of the gender of the people in it. He probably knew that a committed partner is generally there for you in times of illness, challenging life circumstances, and stress. He also probably knew that when people make a formal commitment, most think twice before severing it. He saw no harm in that either. Many same-sex couples are looking for these types of life and health benefits. These benefits don't eliminate the rights of opposite-sex couples to marry. They simply coexist.

Last week a McCain ad was aired that portrayed Obama wanting to teach sex education courses to kindergarten students in school. (I was relieved to see Joe Klein's take on this ad in the Sept. 29th issue of Time magazine.) As I understand it, Obama wants accurate, age-appropriate information taught to schoolchildren. I'm for that. Without it, sex therapists of the future will have no shortage of clients. I would like to think that some day I could go out of business for lack of clients. For that and many other reasons, I'll cast my Democratic vote.

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Creeping Toward Full Civil Rights for Same-Sex Couples

In November 2006, South Africa made a bold step by joining the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, and Spain. What do these countries have in common? They all have legalized same-sex unions.

By signing The Civil Union Act, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka made South Africa the first country in Africa to protect the civil liberties of couples that are not heterosexual. The bill provides for "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnized and registered by either a marriage or a civil union," without specifying whether they are opposite-sex or same-sex partnerships.

The passage of this bill, it turns out, is very much in keeping with South Africa's progressive legislation in addressing the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexual men and women, and transgendered people. South Africa's post-apartheid constitution (1996) was the first in the world to specifically outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Talk about a radical turn-around from an extremely oppressive history.

Also in November, Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad. What will that do for these couples? They will get the same tax breaks as a married couple and be able to adopt children, since Israeli law requires that a couple be married in order to adopt a child. So, marriages performed in places such as Canada, Spain, Netherlands and Belgium will be "registered" as married in Israel though not "recognized" (a religious acknowledgement). Not everyone is Israel is in favor of this ruling, but for now that is how these couples will be treated by the law.

As the United States heads towards another presidential election in 2008, it seems inevitable that the candidates will be questioned about their position on same-sex unions. Doubtless, many aspersions will be hurled at anyone who fails to take a stand in opposition of civil rights for these couples. Yes, that's what it is -- it's a matter of civil rights, not religious entitlement. It's one of the key reasons that America was founded in the first place -- to separate church and state.

Related Topics:

• Study: Same-Sex Parents Raise Well-Adjusted Kids
• Teenage Kids of Same-Sex Parents Fare Well
• Adoption in Same-Sex Couples

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