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To: Walkenfree

Prop 73 includes a "judicial bypass" will enable that individual to obtain the abortion without parental notification. During this process, the court can review the dangerous factors facing a young girl. If she has been the victim of sexual abuse, whether it is rape, incest or statutory rape, the judge will be able to address the situation.

As the previous law now stands, a minor child possibly as young as 12 years old, may be taken to an abortion clinic by a friend, a teacher, a boyfriend or other interested party, without even the knowledge or consent of her parents. Some of those people might be abusers as well...


8 posted on 09/10/2005 2:47:37 PM PDT by Mount Athos
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To: Mount Athos
Prop 73 includes a "judicial bypass" will enable that individual to obtain the abortion without parental notification. During this process, the court can review the dangerous factors facing a young girl. If she has been the victim of sexual abuse, whether it is rape, incest or statutory rape, the judge will be able to address the situation.

Unfortunately, that will render the law largely unenforceable. A girl could then go to a court and make up all kinds of lurid stories about how her parents abused her, and nothing would come of it because her parents wouldn't know anything about it. The pressure would be on the judge to grant the waiver, because if he grants it unjustifiably, nobody would know, because the whole point of the waiver is to protect her confidentiality. But if he doesn't grant it, and it turns out she was telling the truth, it'll come back to bite him. So what that means is that she could tell all these lies, have the abortion, and then go right back to living with the same father she claimed raped her, and nothing at all would come of it.

The more common sense route is to make it so that claims of abuse would trigger an actual investigation, with the girl in protective custody. That of course would preclude her from being able to accuse her parents without them knowing about it, which would effectively prevent them from making up lies about good parents.

Nonetheless, Prop 73 is better than nothing.

12 posted on 09/10/2005 3:13:11 PM PDT by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
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