Proposition 4

[tsugomaru]

For those of you who don't live in California, Proposition 4 is a law that will be voted for or against on election day. It states that minors (those who are under 18) can no longer get abortions without parent notification. If you were to get pregnant, at say, the age of 14, you can go to the clinic and they will give you options. You can have the child and put it up for adoption, have it and keep it for yourself, or you can abort the child for whatever reason. One of the arguments for the law is because parents do want to know if their child is getting an abortion and that sounds reasonable. Most parents want to help out their child and see them through this tough decisions.

The argument against the law states that those who are seeking for a private abortion will no longer have a place to go. If you've already decided on getting an abortion without telling your parents, then you're going to go through with it by whatever means. If the law passes, those who want to keep their abortion secret will no longer have a safe place to go and the abortion can be risky business. After all, if you don't have a good enough relationship with your parents to even share with them that you're pregnant, then chances are, you won't do so because it's the law. After all, Prohibition didn't stop anyone from drinking just because it was against the law. People still drank, except there were no longer regulations on the liquor so some of it was unsafe.

Currently, the polls say that Proposition 4 is in favor by 8%, meaning it has a very high chance of being passed. But one of the problems I see with this law is that a big group of voters are missing from this, teenage girls under the age of 18. This law will obviously affects them and they don't get a say because they can't vote.

I guess I have to tie a question for discussion to really make this a CT thread. What should the US government do about laws imposed on a group of people who can't vote for or against it?

Do not turn this thread into one about abortion.

~Tsugomaru

[dean_machine]

Well, I wouldn't want young people voting even if it does affect them because they still need time to become wiser and know what's best for themselves. I don't think the government needs to do a thing about laws for people not old enough to vote for them, and I think 18 is a good voting age to begin with. I would make the voting age 20, but most adult privileges start at age 18 so 18 is good.

[tsugomaru]

There are definitely issues out there that would probably be best left in the hands of older people because they are supposedly more "mature". But I believe that the issue brought up in Proposition 4 is one where teenage girls from the ages of 16-18 can handle. The US government should be more flexible on the whole age issue for voting. If you've taken a government course in high school, you should be allowed to vote despite your age. More than likely, the kids who are taking government will be aware and knowledgeable about the election than your average person. Why alienate an entire intelligent group of people just because they aren't old enough or supposedly not mature enough?

~Tsugomaru

[x After Dawn x]

Originally Posted by tsugomaru

The US government should be more flexible on the whole age issue for voting. If you've taken a government course in high school, you should be allowed to vote despite your age. More than likely, the kids who are taking government will be aware and knowledgeable about the election than your average person. Why alienate an entire intelligent group of people just because they aren't old enough or supposedly not mature enough?

~Tsugomaru

This may be slightly offtopic, but I agree completely. I don't think that the government realizes that people like me know more about the election than, say, 90-95 % of the American population. I can say with certainty that I know more about it than my parents do, and I find it interesting to say this because I'm not even American. Yet, despite all of this, they alienate a collective, and ironically one that probably has a higher percentage of knowledge about the election than adults do. Many use the excuse, "well a lot of teenagers don't know or care about the election", but I can return the argument by saying that adults don't either. For example, in Canada, only 1/3 of adults actually vote.

[dean_machine]

Maybe allowing people who have taken government would be good, but they would need proof that they have taken it.

Sometimes even intelligent people make terrible decisions, and I think it's more of knowing what's right or what's best rather than intelligence, which I think older people understand better. I'm not saying that intelligence doesn't help one to know what's best though.

[tsugomaru]

We live in the age of computers. We have records of all the classes kids take, so it shouldn't be that hard to prove that someone has taken a government class and passed it.

Just because intelligent people make mistakes like all other human beings isn't reason enough to restrict them from voting.

~Tsugomaru

[Vendetta21]

This is a discussion about whether or not minors should be able to have a say in decisions that affect them specifically, and unfortunately our entire legal structure says that they don't unless their parents are breaking legal or ethical boundaries in vicariously acting for their children.

It is a question more closely related to "at what age should you be able to make your own decisions without your parents?" than it is to disenfranchisement. Consider the mentally ill: should they be in charge of decisions affecting them?

[Cavernio]

It seems to me like a good solution would be to drop the age at which people are considered adults. It's funny how we consider people who are old enough to have babies 'children'. When I was 14, I certainly wasn't well-informed about voting, but I was certainly mature and smart enough to vote. To myself, I seem just as intelligent then as I am now, except that now I've just had a lot more time to think about things and learn things. My world view has not changed except to become bitter :-p I even think I was more responsible then than I am now.
If people were considered legally as adults at age 16, I think that would benefit not only voting, but things like consensual sex, mandatory schooling, video game ratings, etc. I don't think that it should be necessary to pursue a government class. In grade 8 I believe it's part of the canadian curriculum to learn the basics about government.

x_afterdawn_x: CBC disagrees with you. They had a stat showing that in the 2006 federal election, b/w 60-70% of people voted.

[MystictheHedgehog]

I don't know...yes there are those out there that could easily handle moving the age of being a legal adult down to 16, but there are too many immature teenagers out there that couldn't handle this type of responsibility. That's the real issue, and why I support this Proposition 4. Trust me, I understand there are many mature 15 and 16 year old teens out there, that could probably handle adult responsibility more than their parents can. But growing up in a school system deemed one of the worst in the United States, I can honestly tell you that giving any sort of, well, power, to more than 90% of these kids is a scary thing. I can say maybe that 10% could handle the responsibility.

So, essentially you are looking at it this way. Punish the elite teens, this maybe representing 15% of the teen population, or allow teens who shouldn't have early access to that responsibility to use it.

[Reach]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

It seems to me like a good solution would be to drop the age at which people are considered adults. It's funny how we consider people who are old enough to have babies 'children'. When I was 14, I certainly wasn't well-informed about voting, but I was certainly mature and smart enough to vote. To myself, I seem just as intelligent then as I am now, except that now I've just had a lot more time to think about things and learn things. My world view has not changed except to become bitter :-p I even think I was more responsible then than I am now.
If people were considered legally as adults at age 16, I think that would benefit not only voting, but things like consensual sex, mandatory schooling, video game ratings, etc. I don't think that it should be necessary to pursue a government class. In grade 8 I believe it's part of the canadian curriculum to learn the basics about government.

x_afterdawn_x: CBC disagrees with you. They had a stat showing that in the 2006 federal election, b/w 60-70% of people voted.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/s...r-turnout.html

Voter turnouts are at a record low.


As for the actual topic, it's an interesting dilemma. The obvious answer is that every case is different, and whether or not someone is mature and knowledgeable enough to be considered an 'adult' and to make these types of decisions varies greatly from person to person. On the same note, it's impossible to have a legal system that functions on a case to case analysis with respect to this sort of thing.

It seems reasonable that people under the age of 18 could vote if they took classes in politics or something along those lines. In reality, it would probably be beneficial if everyone had to be knowledgeable of the real issues and party platforms before they were allowed to vote, and from there anyone of any age that was qualified could vote. Otherwise, under the current system, I think it's a rather large leap of faith to suggest that democracy actually works well.

With regards to the bill, I don't agree, as I don't think it's necessary and it only goes on to restrict freedoms. I'm pro choice in all respects in issues like this, and I don't see why anyone should be forced to go through their parents in an abortion situation simply because their chronological age falls below an arbitrary standard.

[Cavernio]

mysticthehedgehog: You say you're 17. I'm assuming you don't know a lot of people as well as you've known classmates, etc., who are of legal age to vote. IMO, you'd probably be scared by 90% of people aged 18-88 also.

[MystictheHedgehog]

Originally Posted by Cavernio

mysticthehedgehog: You say you're 17. I'm assuming you don't know a lot of people as well as you've known classmates, etc., who are of legal age to vote. IMO, you'd probably be scared by 90% of people aged 18-88 also.

I won't lie, I probably know more 15-17 than 18-30. However, this is just personal so you can regard it as insignificant, I probably know more 30-50 than any other age. And I consider knowing them just as well as classmates. And those 18-30 scare me about 80% less than the 15-17 I know. But this could be very different in comparison to different areas of the United States. So I can't speak for every single area. I can, however, speak for my experiences in Memphis, and the near surrounding areas in northern Mississippi, eastern Arkansas, as far east as Nashville, and, since I lived in Missouri for a bit, the St Louis area. Granted, though, that area I would trust A LOT more with a lessened voting age than the area I currently live.

And on the topic of "Well if they took a government class already in high school, which is required then they could" I believe this to be false as well. Just for the sake of the knowledge that so many students(Like myself) don't really care about a class, and just do what we can to get by.

[tsugomaru]

Originally Posted by Reach

The obvious answer is that every case is different

And that's why I suggested that the government should be more versatile when it comes to voting. In this day and age, we can keep accurate records of anything. 30-40 years ago, it was easy to cut class and it may have taken the school administration too long to realize to prevent further cuts. Nowadays, attendance is done electronically and if a student cut class, the school administration would know about it within the next hour. It's easy to register certain age groups or people to vote when it comes to elections.

Originally Posted by MystictheHedgehog

That's the real issue, and why I support this Proposition 4.

Proposition 4 won't stop abortions or make sure that parents will be aware of abortion. Although there may be a couple more people who will be notified about an abortion, there will still be a good amount who won't be. If you're in a good relation with your parents, chances are, if you were to have an abortion, they would know about it. Even without Prop 4. If your relation isn't good with your parents, the chances are you still won't tell them even if it's against the law. Without Proposition 4, those teenagers who don't notify their parents that they will have an abortion will still have a safe hospital to go to in order to get it. With Proposition 4, those teenagers will no longer have a place to get a safe abortion. Instead, they will likely try unsafe methods or have unprofessional people perform it.

~Tsugomaru

[MystictheHedgehog]

Originally Posted by tsugomaru

Although there may be a couple more people who will be notified about an abortion,

That's the whole point though. A couple more will be notified. Regardless of my stance on abortion, pro-choice or pro-life, I still say it is better for a parent to at the very least be informed of a situation like that, especially for cases under the age of 18.

And yes, I am well aware that this probably could be easily avoided.

[tsugomaru]

And that's my argument. So what if a couple more people know about their daughters getting an abortion? We will have many, many more who get an unsafe abortion because of it and that's more dangerous than a parent who doesn't know about their child's abortion.

~Tsugomaru

[MystictheHedgehog]

Originally Posted by tsugomaru

And that's my argument. So what if a couple more people know about their daughters getting an abortion? We will have many, many more who get an unsafe abortion because of it and that's more dangerous than a parent who doesn't know about their child's abortion.

~Tsugomaru

You really make a great point there, I had yet to think of it that way. But, better yet, how to we prevent these back-alley unsafe abortions then? And we obviously can't trust the parents to make sure that they know where their 15 year old daughter is at all times, otherwise I doubt she would get pregnant in the first place....but back on subject.

Regardless, I think there will be many more that are informed, not just a few. But yes, I do think you will see an increase in unsafe abortions...like I said though, how do we prevent these things from going on? Likely, even if it was legal for parents to not be notified, I believe many abortion clinic employees may take it upon themselves to notify a parent anyway. And even if they don't, if I knocked up my girl and wanted an abortion, I would be pretty fearful of that. Assuming many think the same way I do, and get convinced a back-alley abortion is just as safe, then you wouldn't see a number of unsafe abortions drop too far. Just speculating though.

[devonin]

If you take something that kids and teens do that they don't want their parents to know about, and force them to make sure their parents know about it, they will absolutely go to greater lengths to try and find a way around it.

All kinds of people would be forging parental notes, getting friends to call in pretending to be parents etc etc. Hell, something as generally safe and non-life-changing as getting a piercing or tattoo generally requires parental permission under 18 and I know a TON of people who got them by faking permission, or finding somewhere that woudln't ask.

Clearly for something like an abortion I'd expect their standards of proof for parental notification, probably most places would require the parent to either be present the day of the procedure, or sign off on it so you coudln't just you know, race home and erase the answering machine message.

Primarily, I am just such a complete supporter of a woman's right to an abortion for any reason whatsoever for the first trimester, that the idea that one's parents could interfere with your right to such a procedure really rubs me the wrong way.

I guess the question is whether the notification has to happen before the procedure, or if the notification has to be accompanied by permission before the procedure.

If the notified parent has the legal ability to just say "No I don't give permission, you can't do it" then I cannot possibly support such a bill being voted on without input from the under-18 female population of the area.

If the notification has to happen regardless, but the parent would not have the ability to deny them the procedure, then I would have less of a problem having it simply put to the vote of those who are currently registered to vote.

The whole point of the distinction between voting and non-voting age is that under that age even if the law would effect you, you aren't necessarily considered ready to make an unbiased rational judgement (Not to say all voters or even most voters do that)

Consider some more ludicrous examples that would never actually come up. If you included children under 12 in a vote for a law that would make it mandatory to eat your vegetables, do you think such a law would actually pass?

If they restructured this proposition to refer only to minors under the age of say 14, then they would have a much stronger basis for demanding that parents ought to be notified. Under 18 is simply insufficiently 'too young' for me. There are 17 year olds in university, there are 16 year olds living on their own, self-supporting, and having to get mommy and daddy to sign off on their day-to-day lives is idiotic.

[tsugomaru]

That's why I made a reference to the Prohibition. They outlawed drinking, but people didn't stop drinking just because it was against the law. They went out of their way to produce alcohol and secretly sell it. Not only was the alcohol unsafe because there were no regulations, people drank more than they did without Prohibition.

~Tsugomaru