Notification...

I have so much work that I can't see straight. I am losing sleep, and failing to functional perform my daily tasks, or at least those which get shuffled to the back of the pile. I walk, irritatedly past the sigh in the window at a neighbor's house, "Yes on proposal 85," it states, "protect our daughters" and I think to myself, "Protect our daughters? Our daughters? Who are these people??" And then I remember the big fat American flag plastered in their window, and the thought makes my teeth curl. If I am not misinformed (which is always a possibility), this is the proposed ballot measure that the religious rightwing nutjobs (to quote Kerry, quoting a parody of himself) tried to slip through last time around about parental notification for any type of "surgical procedure". Now, we all know that this is a euphemism for abortions, as any teenager who falls down, tears a ligament, and needs surgery would likely not hesitate to call parents for help, economic or otherwise... unless their parents were the authors of such accident. Without even getting into the ethics of abortion vs. right to lifers (ok, if you oblige a child to be born against its will then at least have the decency to support state-funded programs that will make its life possible and more than sheer misery) there is still a basic, and tragic flaw in the notion that "parental notification" laws are in place to protect anyone, beyond controlling and abusive parents.

Let us suppose for a moment that I lead a moral and ethical life (and by I, I don't mean myself, but for argument's sake...).
I perhaps don't believe in abortion, but I understand that what I believe to be right doesn't give me the right to impose my belief on someone else's body. Or perhaps I believe that abortion is a good thing, because, birth control as we know it, though bent on pumping hormones into women's bodies and fiddling with their chemistry for the majority of their adult lives, is nevertheless fallible, and if I am spending hundreds of dollars a year to not get pregnant, it might stand to reason that I don't actually want to have a baby. Perhaps I am even a married woman, who doesn't cheat, lie or steal, but who doesn't feel that children are a relegated responsibility. It all matters very little because what this "parental notification" aims to do, is to target society's most vulnerable members and co-opt their agency in life decisions.

I am a parent (now I am speaking as me). I have a little girl. I was a little girl, and then a teenager, and if anyone knows the dangers of sexiness in a society that hyper-sexualizes its girls from early childhood, it is me. That is why, I, as the moral person that I am, will maintain an open line of dialogue with my little girl throughout her lifetime. Does that mean she will tell me everything? If she's anything like I was, the answer is "hell no", but will she be able to come to me for the big stuff? Will she weigh in with me when she is struggling over a question as enormous as whether or not to have a child? I sincerely hope so. And if that isn't a belief in "family values" I don't know what is. I am a progressive thinker, a liberal (oooh, shudder, shudder) but I don't want my little girl to come home at age 15 pregnant any more than anyone else does... the difference is, that I would hope that she would feel safe enough in our home to talk to me, to seek my help, and to make the choice that she needed to make.

But that is my little girl, and I am a parent with the wherewithall to help her, and a solid, moral foundation in pedagogy and child-rearing. What about those parents that don't? What about those parents that neglect their children because they didn't really want them in the first place, or because they are self-centered assholes, or religious fanatics. Last I heard, biological urges are still biologically equitable, that is, even if my religion tells me it is a sin to rub up against that body, my body will still ask me for that... That is how this and other species perpetuate themselves, lest we forget. So, what happens when a little girl, a 17-year-old little girl knows that she can't possibly go home to tell her parents what is happening in her life. Maybe she was at a party, and she drank too much, and she doesn't really know if you call that rape, because she can't really remember it all that well... or maybe she has a steady boyfriend who swore that it was ok, as long as they were engaged, or maybe... maybe the very same person that is meant to protect her has abused her, has beaten her, or sexually molested her? We are telling these girls, no, you don't get to seek protection from the storm. There is no safe haven, no path out of mysery for you.

What this sort of legislature aims to do is circumvent (once more) a woman's right to defend herself. If you could go home and talk about it with your parents, if there were safety, and solace wouldn't you choose to tell them? If going home is so frightening to girls whose parents are bigots, and zealots, and holier-than-though thumpers of empty books (because if they were to actually read the words and the sentiments of the bible and other sacred texts they would be hard-pressed to find support for their arguments, and their wars) so frightening that they feel the need to legislate their daughter's compliance, don't we have a moral conundrum?

I would wager, if it were legal in this state, of course, that the over-all impact of such legislature would be negligible for women of means, girls whose families have money, and education, and a reputation to uphold. But encroaching on anyone's access to healthcare, whatever the reason, will inevitably fall hardest on those who are already least able to defend themselves, from life, and the environmental hazards of poverty. One more squirmish in the war on women...