California NOW

Prop. 4 Polls Mean California Teens Need Your Help!

Polling is showing Prop. 4 gaining support, and we're only one month out from the election!

We need to spread the word and let California voters know the truth about how dangerous Prop. 4 would be for California's most vulnerable teens.

The recent Public Policy Institute of California poll shows Prop 4 winning 47%-44%, and a SurveyUSA poll shows Prop 4 winning 52%-36%.

The Campaign for Teen safety needs your help now more than ever! Please volunteer to make calls, hand out information, and to help in any way you can. Make sure that you spread the word to everyone you know that Prop. 4 is a deceptive initiative that will hurt California teens and families.

You still have until October 8th to donate to the No on 4 campaign and have your gift matched, dollar for dollar, to double your impact!

Say No On 4 Twice As Loud!

Former state Senator Becky Morgan and her husband Jim Morgan know that Proposition 4 is a bad idea for our teens. They understand that parental notification doesn't work - that Prop 4 can't force teens to talk to their parents, but it might force them to do something desperate and dangerous, like delaying critical medical care or turning to self-induced or back-alley abortions.

They have made a commitment to match every donation to the No on Prop. 4 campaign made online - dollar for dollar. If you donate $25, so will they; if you pledge $100, their additional contribution means $200 will go toward protecting teen safety in California through the No on Prop 4 campaign.

This special donor match will only last until 11:59 p.m. on October 8, so donate today to double your donation's impact. Together, we will once again - and as often as necessary - protect our teens, our families, and our community.

We can't stop the fight now. We can't let our teens down. Join Becky and Jim - and thousands of other Californians - by supporting the Campaign for Teen Safety. Click here to donate today.

When the Facts are Known, People Say No on Prop. 4

Every initiative on the California ballot must have a legislative hearing before election day. Last week, a joint Assembly-Senate health committee held the hearing for Prop. 4.

Watch the footage of the hearing.

Assemblymember Dave Jones wasn't afraid to challenge Prop. 4 supporters on the deceptive language of the proposition, including the fact that the woman the measure is supposedly named after ("Sarah") was a married woman to whom none of the Prop. 4 provisions would have applied. Prop. 4 opponents discussed the dangerous effect of Prop. 4 on California's teens and why voters should reject this third attempt at legislating family communications. Read more on Prop. 4.

A new PPIC poll confirms that California voters remain strongly (71%) against any government interference in a women's right to choose.That's the good news...but the same poll shows that the Proposition 4 race is very tight -- with 47% voting YES and 44% voting NO. While this is "within the margin of error" it still shows that we have a lot of work to do to let our pro-choice friends know about 4 and come on board to move the NO side up past the 50% mark!

Thanks to California Progress Report for the link to this footage!

Sarah Palin: Clinic Blockader?

This just in from Salon via DailyKos: did Sarah Palin participate in blockading a doctor's office (please note, not a clinic where abortions were being performed) simply because that doctor had defended an Alaskan woman's right to have access to abortion without having to travel to Seattle?

From the Salon Article:

In 1996, evangelical churches mounted a vigorous campaign to take over the local hospital's community board and ban abortion from the valley. When they succeeded, Bess and Dr. Susan Lemagie, a Palmer OB-GYN, fought back, filing suit on behalf of a local woman who had been forced to travel to Seattle for an abortion. The case was finally decided by the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled that the hospital must provide valley women with the abortion option.

At one point during the hospital battle, passions ran so hot that local antiabortion activists organized a boisterous picket line outside Dr. Lemagie's office, in an unassuming professional building across from Palmer's Little League field. According to Bess and another community activist, among the protesters trying to disrupt the physician's practice that day was Sarah Palin.

There's a question I'd like to see someone asking on a national news program.

Take a look at our video on clinic defense work done by Sacramento NOW.

I know we may be overusing this image, but I just love it.

Friday's Legislative Wrap-up

Governor Schwarzenegger, after his veto of the state budget further reduced the time he has to consider and sign bills, has stated that he will not be signing much of the legislation passed this year.

We must step up efforts to get two crucial pieces of legislation passed: SB 840 and AB 437.

CONTACT THE GOVERNOR:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160

Take Action on SB 840!
Take Action on AB 437!

Please call as well as clicking to take action, for greater impact on these essential bills to provide health care for all Californians and ensure that California women receive equal pay!

More Reasons to Vote No on 4

A new report by Child Trends found that approximately 18 percent of women aged 18 to 24 years old report having experienced forced sexual intercourse at least once in their lives.

The fact is, young women are more likely to be assaulted. Most young adult women report being age 16 or younger at the time of first forced sexual intercourse, including 13% who were age 11 or younger, 15% who were ages 12-14, and 30% who were ages 15-16. Moreover, they are more likely to experience reproductive coercion including birth control sabotage, refusal to accept birth control use, or other attempts to force pregnancy. Read more on the reproductive health consequences of intimate partner violence from the Family Violence Prevention Fund.

A pregnant teen already in a dangerous situation doesn't need the restrictions of Prop. 4. Most teens do go to their parents when faced with an unintended pregnancy. But teens in crisis need options.

Prop. 4 is Dangerous: Pass It On!

Californians have made themselves clear -- by saying “NO!” twice in the past three years to dangerous parental-notification ballot initiatives. But anti-choice forces won’t give up and have placed a similar initiative, Prop 4, on November’s ballot.

Like Props 73 and 85 before it, Prop 4 would put our most vulnerable teens at risk. It would prohibit young women from obtaining an abortion without government-mandated parental notification -- unless they go to court. And this law goes even further than Props 73 and 85 by expanding liability for doctors who provide care for teens!

Many teens won't, and some simply cannot, turn to their parents when facing an unintended pregnancy -- even if politicians tell them they must.  Put simply, this initiative delays critical counseling and medical care for our teens.

After the jump, read a letter from a school counselor on how Prop. 4 puts our most vulnerable teens in danger, and see what you can do to stop Prop. 4 and protect California teens.

Choice is More Than Abortion

Lynn Paltrow from National Advocates for Pregnant Women has a fantastic "Open Letter to Gov. Sarah Palin on Women's Rights" up on Alternet right now.

In it, she lays out just how the issue of choice affects not only the decision to carry a pregnancy to term, but also when, where, and how women are able to give birth. She also gives examples of how women's right to choose how to give birth has been restricted, and how this could have affected Palin's own choices in the birth of her last child.

Here's a brief quote:

According to the press reports, instead of going straight to a hospital you chose to get on a long airplane flight back to Alaska.

When Pamela Rae Stewart, allegedly, didn't get to the hospital quickly enough on the day of her delivery, she was arrested in California on the theory that she had violated the rights of her fetus.

The whole article is well-worth reading, and then go check out our post on The Womanization of Birth.

Sarah Palin and the Failure of Abstinence-only Education

There has been a lot of talk in the news and the blogosphere about the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol.

While it is inappropriate to attack or attempt to smear Palin for her daughter's life decisions, or to stigmatize Bristol for her decision to become sexually active, the release of this information does bring up the issue of Palin's stated views on sex education.

There is already plenty of evidence that abstinence-only sex education doesn't work, and that comprehensive sex ed. does.

If a teenager raised in a family where both parents oppose pre-marital sex and believe that parents, not schools, should be responsible for sex education can still decide to become sexually active outside of marriage, doesn't that demonstrate the failings of the abstinence-only parent-taught method?

If Sarah Palin can't manage to convince her daughter not to have sex, what makes her think that any other parent can rein in teenaged hormones better than she can? And if abstinence-only rhetoric clearly doesn't work, shouldn't someone at least be teaching teens how to have sex responsibly and safely?

The discussion around this from conservatives reminds me of the language around McCain's statement that if his daughter were to become pregnant, it would be a "family decision." Apparently it's OK to be a mother with a career if you're sufficiently conservative, it's OK for the teen daughter of a conservative politician to become pregnant, and it's OK for conservative families to make decisions about abortion on their own. It's just not OK for all the rest of us.

DHHS Rule Expands Conscience Clauses, Limits Access

Like everyone else in the feminist blogosphere, we're appalled at the attempt by the Bush administration to redefine contraception as abortion while also expanding conscience clauses to allow doctors not only to refuse to provide abortions (remember, this could now mean birth control pills as well), but to refuse to refer a patient to someone who will. Read the regulations. Women without the money and access needed to choose switch health care providers will be the most impacted by the change. With over 80% of counties already without an abortion provider, access will become even more restricted.

Write to your legislators now.
Write to Secretary Leavitt and comment on his blog.

You also have 30 days to comment of the proposed regulation. Write to consciencecomment@hhs.gov. Specify the subject as “provider conscience regulation.” Know that all comments will be available for public viewing in their entirety. You can also comment via Planned Parenthood. For other methods of comment, see page 2 of the regulations.. (Thanks to Feministe for the info!)