Wednesday, November 09, 2005

A Victory for Choice in California

In another election result, the good people of California, in addition to telling Governor Arnie where to get off, defeated, by a healthy margin, an Abortion Notification measure which would have required the notification of the parents of girls 17 and under getting an abortion. California would have been the 35th state with such a notification law.

Generally the American public approves of Abortion Notification measures especially where minors are concerned. Exactly why the California measure was so soundly defeated is open to debate. It could indicate a shift away from favoring notification measures. Another possibility is that the strong language in the measure defining abortion as an act that causes "the death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born," which is very different from the more neutral language used in statutes elsewhere, might have been too much for Californians to swallow.

Or perhaps, while voting NO on all of Arnie's propositions, some California voters got in a rut and voted NO on this too. Let's hope that wasn't the case and the measure was rejected due to its lack of merit.

No comments: