Did you know that California voters rejected three divisive ballot initiatives in recent history?

In 2005, California voters decisively rejected an anti-choice effort to impose restrictions on young women's access to abortion.  At that time, NARAL Pro-Choice America's President, Nancy Keenan, was quoted as saying "A ballot initiative cannot mandate healthy family communication…Yesterday's vote is a sign that Californians want Governor Schwarzenegger and other elected officials to focus on ways to prevent unintended pregnancy. Fortunately, California has made honest, medically accurate sex education a priority, so let's hope the state will devote more resources to these efforts, now that voters have said no to anti-choice proposals like Prop. 73."

Again in 2006, and most recently in 2008, voters rejected a divisive bill similar to Proposition 73.  The proposed measures - Proposition 85 in 2006 and Proposition 4 in 2008 - would have required a doctor to notify a young woman's parent or legal guardian 48 hours before providing an abortion.  California voters defeated Proposition 4 by a 52% to 48% margin.  Government cannot mandate healthy family communication.  Unfortunately, some young women cannot involve their parents because they come from homes where physical violence or emotional abuse is prevalent, or because their pregnancies are the result of incest.  Mandatory parental-involvement laws do not solve the problem of troubled family communication; they only exacerbate a potentially dangerous situation and threaten teens' safety.  

Text of Proposed Laws, Proposition 4, at http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/text-proposed-laws/text-of-proposed-laws.pdf#prop4 (last visited December 8, 2008); Evelyn Nieves, Parental Abortion Notice Law Defeated a Third Time, Assoc. Press, Nov. 5, 2008; Press Release, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Californians Vote to Keep Teens Safe, Reject Anti-Choice Prop. 73 (Nov. 9, 2005); Cynthia Dailard and Chinue Turner Richardson, Teenager's Access to Confidential Reproductive Health Services, Guttmacher Rep. on Pub. Pol'y, Nov. 2005; Text of Proposed Laws, Proposition 73, at http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/bp_nov05/voter_info_pdf/text73.pdf.