Oregon voters will be asked this November to decide if parental notification should be mandatory for any girl between the ages of 15 and 17 seeking an abortion.
The Committee to Protect Our Teen Daughters, an organization with the backing of the Oregon Republican Party, the Oregon Family Council and Oregon Right to Life, submitted 115,845 signatures last month to qualify for the fall ballot.
Supporters needed only 75,630 valid signatures to make the ballot and, according to a document released by the Secretary of State’s office Wednesday, an estimated 84.11 percent of the submitted signatures were valid.
Campaign organizer Sarah Nashif said she was not surprised that the measure qualified.
“I have been around campaigns for a while, so I was pretty confident,” she said. “It’s definitely a complicated and tedious process to make sure all those signatures are valid voters.”
Nashif said the measure includes provisions for emergency medical procedures, and legal bypass in the event that a girl would be threatened by notifying her parents, such as in cases of abuse. The measure is a logical extension of the restrictions already placed on minors by Oregon laws, she said.
“This bill does not limit abortion – this is not consent – this is just notification,” she said.
A 15 year-old does not have the right to get a piercing or see an R-rated movie without consent, so notifying parents when a minor is planning an abortion is logical, Nashif said.
Incoming Students for Choice director Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky said the bill represented a limit on reproductive rights and said she was disappointed to see the initiative approved for the ballot.
“I was hoping that the signatures would come up invalid, we watched several grievances be filed against it, but now that it’s on the ballot we have to go to work,” she said.
The distinction between notification and consent makes little difference, Zimmer-Stucky said and in extreme cases notification can become a difficulty.
“I’m a big proponent of trust and dialogue,” she said. “In cases of rape or incest – especially incest – going to family members isn’t a particularly good action, and going before a judge – that’s a very traumatic experience.”
The measure also intends to pressure doctors to not perform abortions because they would be at-risk for lawsuits if they perform an abortion without parental notification, Zimmer-Stucky said.
Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Nancy Bennett said that already opponents are forming a coalition comprising state health organizations and political groups.
“We will be out there to tell voters what this is all about from now until the election,” Bennett said. “It sounds like it’s going to be a pretty crowded ballot but we’re going to get the word out.”
She was confident that voters would reject the measure based on historical trends. Oregon voters repealed an anti-abortion measure in 1986, defeated a similar statewide measure in 1990 and rejected a broad restriction proposed in Columbia County in 2003 she said.
“Oregonians definitely have a history of voting against anything that would limit reproductive rights,” she said.
Oregon is one of six states and the District of Columbia with no laws on parental notification or involvement in abortion decisions for teens, though parents of children younger than 15 must be informed when their child undergoes any medical procedure.
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