Lynn Harris has a good blog post about the California ballot propositions that are an assault on gay people and teenage girls. Proposition 8, of course, is an attempt to ban gay marriage and force already married couples to lose their marriages against their will. Proposition 4 is another attempt to force underage girls to bear children against their will. The obsession on the right with forcing teenage girls in particular to bear children against their will should be a horrifying reminder of how depraved people can get in service of maintaining traditional social hierarchies. Right wingers have felt the loss of the mid-20th century baby mills for childless couples called “maternity homes” deeply, and would love to see a return. It’s a satisfying idea from a certain perspective—-look up teenage girls who got caught fucking, take their babies and give them to childless couples. You get to reward the worthy married couples with babies and punish the girls for fucking. That they system treats baby making like it’s prison labor probably only sweetens the deal. Parental interference laws like Proposition 4 have to be understood in light of this fantasy. The hope is to re-establish the idea that pregnant teenagers are their parents’ property to dispose of as they see fit, and anti-choice groups have already established a funding and organization system that can easily be turned into the disposal valves for such girls if abortion is banned completely. (Currently, most teenage girls who abort do it with their parents’ blessing, which makes perfect sense if you’re a reasonable-minded adult.)
What’s interesting is that the anti-choice movement is trying to spin Proposition 4 as a law to protect teenagers from violence and injury, calling it “Sarah’s Law”. Obviously the idea is that people hear this nickname and think, “Gosh, some girl name Sarah had something bad happen to her because of legal abortion.” In other words, it’s 100% bullshit. Actually, 110% bullshit. It’s off the charts bullshit.
Supporters want you to hear the sobering story of ‘Sarah,’ a 15-year-old girl who didn’t tell her parents she was pregnant and then died after an abortion. Except”—according to the Mercury News—“‘Sarah’ didn’t live in California. She lived in Texas and was considered married under Texas law [a common-law marriage, I believe], so any parental notification law wouldn’t have applied to her. And her name isn’t Sarah, it’s Jamie Garcia Yanez-Villegas. Most telling of all, her tragic death took place in 1994. That means when Proposition 4 backers went looking for a story to illustrate the need for a parental notification law, they couldn’t find a better example in the past decade.” Or in white people.