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Mandatory Parental Involvement
Prop 85
"I grew up in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and I know that speaking out makes a difference. That’s why I and others spoke out against Prop 85, the dangerous ballot initiative in California designed to restrict teens’ access to abortion services.
“We fought this in 2004 and won! Then we had to fight it again in 2006. ... Sometimes you feel like crying inside but then you regroup, you know why you do certain things, you find your center, and you go forward. As hard as it was, I went forward after my wife, Randi, died of cancer in 2001. If I was able to put one foot in front of the other after my wife died, then I can go forward with anything. So forward we go with speaking out against mandatory parental notification laws.” — Alan Kaye, pro-choice and cancer-prevention activist, Woodland Hills, CA
Becky Bell
On September 16, 1988, 17-year-old Becky Bell died of complications that resulted from an unsafe, illegal abortion, which she sought in a desperate attempt to avoid telling her parents that she was pregnant. Becky lived in Indiana, where the law mandates that young women obtain the consent of a parent before terminating a pregnancy.
"Becky Bell was a beautiful, living human being who is no longer here because judges and politicians decided that they were going to be the moral conscience of this country," Becky's father Bill told 60 Minutes in February 1991.
In the same interview, her mother Karen said, "Two years ago I would have been totally for the parental consent law, but not now. ... Mothers and fathers have both come up and said, 'Well, we just know that our daughters would come to us, we know it.' And I said, 'And I knew Becky would come to me.' And look where she is."
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