Suggested Talking Points

Use these in talking to friends, speaking to groups, writing letters to editors, calling radio talk shows.

Children under 18 can’t get an aspirin from the school nurse, a flu shot, or have a tooth pulled without parental consent.
Children under 18 can’t go on school field trips without parental consent.
In California, parental consent is required before surgical procedures (other than abortion) are performed on a minor child—this promotes the safety of the child undergoing the procedure.
Parents can provide vital information to avert medical risks and complications.
An informed parent can get prompt care for hemorrhage, infections, and other possibly fatal complications.
Parents will be held responsible for costs or complications stemming from their minor daughter’s abortion.
Parents will have to deal with the psychological aftermath of an abortion.
Parents have invested attention and love in raising their daughter and care more about her future than strangers at clinics who stand to profit from abortions.
Under Proposition 85, a minor can petition the juvenile court for a waiver. In a confidential proceeding, she can ask the court to find that notifying her parents is not in her best interests. The court will then report evidence of abuse to the appropriate child protection agency, so that the problem can be addressed, not covered up.
A study of over 46,000 births to school-age girls in California found that over two-thirds were impregnated by adult men whose mean age was 22.6 years.
Adult boyfriends encourage young girls to have secret abortions to cover up evidence of statutory rape.
Without parental involvement, girls—victims of rape—will continue to be victimized.
Parental involvement will help bring crimes such as statutory rape to the attention of law enforcement.
The California public now funds these secret abortions, hidden from the parents, even for girls from wealthy families.
The Los Angeles Times reported that many abortion businesses are “chop shops” where sub-standard care results in injuries and death.
Proposition 85 protects minor girls from being coerced to have an abortion. It provides young pregnant girls access to the juvenile court to protect them from threats or violence.
More than thirty states have parental involvement laws in effect. Their experience, going back over a decade, has proven that parental involvement laws reduce abortions without danger or harm to girls.