Yes on Prop.4

Yes on Prop. 4


There was a very shocking event in Korea a few years ago. Groups of 12th grade students went on a three-day school field trip to another city. After they came back from the field trip, one of the girls started to skip classes because of serious stomachache. Other classmates worried about her and asked her if there is anything wrong with her health, but she refused to answer. After nine months, she gave birth to a little baby girl in a public restroom.
She confessed later that she was so scared to tell her parents that she got pregnant while she went on a field trip. She was raised in a good family, but the communication was difficult because she felt so much guilt about her mistake. In the end, she bled too much while she was giving birth, her life was put in danger. After she was hospitalized, she said she would definitely tell her parents and ask for help if she could go back to her past. Because of one mistake in her life, she lost her health and her poor baby.
There were number of propositions considered in this year’s presidential election. Most women including mothers and daughters showed great interests in Proposition 4. Then, what is proposition 4 all about?
Prop. 4 deals with unemancipated minors’ pregnancy and abortion issue. Whether doctors have to notify the girl’s parents before they have an abortion operation or not was the main issue. Often times Prop. 4 is mentioned as ‘Sarah’s law’. Sarah’s law comes from a girl called Sarah who had an illegal abortion surgery when she was 15 and died due to an infection caused by the surgery. Proposition 4 differs from other past propositions that are similar to proposition 4. It allows a girl to get permission from an adult family member other than a parent. Sometimes, their parents are not the best counselors for some teenage girls. Even though the girls cannot communicate with their parents, they can still talk to their relatives including grandparents, aunts and uncles. Every girl goes through some kind of wandering time when she is a teenager. If a teenage girl feels scared that she might be kicked out of her home, she can talk to one of her other family members who can understand her situation.
Teenage girls can become very emotional and not be able to think and decide rationally and proposition 4 can help those girls in a better way and to live a healthier life by telling their family members who can change the girls’ life that can be miserable in a way for the wrong actions they have made.
Of course, mandatory notification to parents can lead some girls to kill themselves. This is why doctors must tell a family member about this very sensitive issue. Abortion can bring a serious danger in a girl’s mental and physical health and a parent or a family member can help her by providing a family health history. Although counselors can help a girl, family is the one who care about a girl the most.
One of the arguments against this proposition is that no law can mandate family communication. However, this is not just about family communication. This is about the parents’ right and responsibility to know what is happening on their child’s body, especially if the child is a minor. Parents not only have the right to know but also obligated to know as the parents to take necessary measures to protect and help their daughters.
Abortion is a major medical operation and parents have a right to know if their child is going through this serious procedure. If counseling is necessary to a girl, then counseling process should be provided to both parents and a child to help them to have a better communication in the future. Listening to their voices, sharing their hearts, and guiding them to the right way can change the girls’ life that can be painful and miserable for a mistake they have made in their life.