I feel like California is my adopted home state. Sure, some people deride it as a state where only crazies live, but that's okay. I'm pretty crazy.

There's a ballot initiative called Proposition 73 [PDF] that would require a girl's parents be notified if she tries to get an abortion. Proponents of the ballot initiative -- which would amend the California state constitution -- say that parents have to be notified of other medical procedures. Proponents also contend that allowing "secret abortions" allow older men (statistics suggest that the mean age of men who impregnate girls in California is 22.4) to conceal their crimes. Opponents of the measure say that government can't mandate family communication, and also, the last thing a pregnant girl wants to do is have to find a lawyer and speak to a judge. It also makes an abortion difficult to obtain.

And that is exactly the point of this law: to make abortion harder to get. Prior to Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), each state had its own laws regarding abortion. Some states allowed it and others didn't. The Roe decision said that, since the right to privacy, and by way of the right to privacy, the right to an abortion, is in the federal constitution, then no state can outlaw abortion, since doing so would conflict with the federal constitution. The "right to privacy" had been articulated in cases prior to Roe, most notably Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). Griswold found that a Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives violated "the right of marital privacy which is within the penumbra [umbrella or sphere of influence] of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights." In other words, it's not the state's business what consenting married adults do in the bedroom.

But pro-lifers tried to make abortion very hard to obtain, so that while it wasn't illegal, the effect of such laws was to discourage people from getting abortions. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), said that such laws were unconstitutional. In this particular case, a Georgia statute required a woman not only to have a doctor determine whether or not she could have an abortion, but also required a hospital committee to approve the doctor's findings. The purpose of all of this administrative mumbo-jumbo was not to better safeguard the woman; rather, the administrative garbage was designed to make the process long and complicated so as to discourage people from getting abortions.

The Texas Supreme Court dealt with parental notifications -- in fact, it dealt with them when current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was sitting on the court. In 2000, the Texas Supreme Court dealt with four "Jane Doe" cases regarding the state's Parental Notification Act. A Jane Doe petitioned the courts to let her bypass Texas' parental notification law. A lower court denied her application, but the Texas Supreme Court, with Gonzales concurring in the majority opinion, reversed the lower court's decision. (This is why religious conservatives were so irked at the possibility that Gonzales could be nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court -- they knew that he was not completely anti-abortion.) Addressing the dissenting opinions in three Jane Doe cases from 2000, Gonzales wrote, "[T]o construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism." Priscilla Owen, one of the dissenters in these cases, has seen been appointed to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Proposition 73 is dangerous because it is not merely enacting a statute; it's amending the California state constitution. This means that if the initiative were passed, the judiciary could not overrule it. It's also a step toward a bad precedent of putting issue-of-the-day legislation into a constitution, which is a very big deal. The constitution is supposed to create the framework of the government, not provide safe haven for bad laws. The proposition requires a physician to notify a girl's parents -- in writing -- of the girl's intention to have an abortion. The proposition then mandates a 48-hour "reflection period" before the procedure can be carried out. If the girl doesn't want her parents to be notified, she can file a petition with the juvenile court. "If the judge finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that the unemancipated minor is suffi ciently mature and well-informed to decide whether to have an abortion, the judge shall authorize a waiver of notice of a parent or guardian." If the judge doesn't find all that stuff, then the girl can appeal the judgement to the Judicial Council.

Curiously, Prop. 73 uses the words "unborn child" to describe an embryo or fetus. Is this the precursor to something more? (Now that "unborn child" has found its way into the state constitution, what other rights does an "unborn child" have? Is it a legal person? Does this mean that abortion is illegal?) Many things about this ballot initiative make me raise my eyebrows quizically.