Prop 85 is not about a minor's right to an abortion, nor requiring parental consent. Abortion rights were settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade three decades ago and the California Supreme Court ruled there is no requirement for minors to obtain parental consent in American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, in 1996. Prop 85's only issue is whether parents should be notified 48 hours before a minor has an abortion in California. How do we evaluate the merits of this proposition and its consequences?

First, disregard rhetoric that it's anti-family or pro-family, left or right, as these characterizations bias objective evaluation. Similarly, disregard arguments that teens cannot get an aspirin from a school nurse, as they can legally buy aspirins at supermarkets. There are numerous regulations that shouldn't exist, so using one to justify another is not a valid argument. The real issue is teenage girls, past puberty, 13 to 17 do consensually have sex with their boyfriends and sometimes become pregnant. This may be due to a lack of sex education or deliberate choice. Naturally, reasonable, responsible parents desire to know if their teenager is dealing with this kind of life-changing emotional experience and want to provide their personal counsel and support. The problem is that not all parents are reasonable or responsible.

The issue is whether parents are justified in turning to government to create new rights and regulations to deal with what should be a very private matter. Sure, everyone desires the opportunity to influence others. Many think their own opinion should apply universally to everyone else, like a moral Kantian categorical imperative. In practice this approach fails because it disregards circumstances or if it took all circumstances into consideration it would no longer be universal. Additionally, turning to government to solve all of our problems or grant all of our desires is not the way rational Americans choose to live.

Contrary to some beliefs, children are not the property or possession of their biological parents or society. Hegel argued in The Philosophy of Right, 1821, that parents do not own their children, contrary to early Roman law. The only justification for parents' limited authority over children, Hegel asserted, "is to educate and benefit them." One educates a teenager by using reason and logical arguments supported by valid principles and facts; not by authoritative whim or force. A minor's right to privacy is not derived from the state, although the state may act to protect this right. Like many rights, privacy is derived intrinsically from being a free human being. Humans are responsible for their own lives and decisions. Responsibility entails freedom to act. Respect and confidence encourages responsible decisions.

Parents do not have a "right" to be notified of a teenager's abortion decision. Parents, however, are afforded an opportunity to participate in that decision-making process by cultivating an on-going loving and supportive relationship with their teenager. When a challenging event occurs in a teenager's life, the nature of the relationship that parents have cultivated over time will determine whether a teenager decides to include them in that aspect of the teenager's private life. Loving, intelligent, supportive parents will be invited into this process. Hateful, ignorant, harmful parents will be excluded.

The law is not the appropriate vehicle to initiate parental involvement. If teenagers have reasons to believe it is not in their physical or emotional best interest to share their abortion decision with their parents, a law requiring forceful involvement through parental notification or alternatively humiliation before a judge who may subject their lover to statutory rape penalties or their parents to child social service investigation for abuse, may force teenagers to runaway, get abortions underground or out of state, or commit suicide.

Unintended consequences of shortsighted legislation are all too common. It's time we learn from past mistakes. Let special interest groups battle among themselves in the marketplace of ideas to persuade others voluntarily. They should start with dialogues with their teenagers, not propositions or legislators. Consider Sophocles' wisdom in King Creon's painful outcry of regret over the tragic double suicide stemming from his state imposed decree regarding the competing moral interests of the state and his son's intended bride Antigone. King Creon - "Woe is me, for the wretched blindness of my counsels." The messenger - "Of all curses which cleave to man, ill counsel is the sovereign curse." You can take a moral stand in safeguarding teenagers from this proposition's ill counsel and unintended consequences by voting No on Prop 85.