I learned a lot from Planned Parenthood yesterday, and was very impressed

[slackmaster]

Just a note of thanks for people who support Planned Parenthood.

Saturday morning I attended a Candidate Issues Forum hosted by Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties. I am helping run a campaign for a local office. (My candidate was the only one for our target office who bothered to show up.)

I was a waffler on "parental notification" laws, now I am strongly against them. I had been looking at it from the perspective of an individual parent, thinking about how I'd feel if I had a daughter and she got pregnant.

Planned Parenthood set my mind straight. Girls who get into that situation come in to PP pre-sorted: 70% of them have already gotten one or both parents involved. For the other 30%, there is usually a good reason the parents are not there.

They gave us a whole bunch of data supported by hard evidence - Facts and figures, not appeals to emotion or other bullshit.

Thanks to everyone who supports that fine organization. It's grown up a lot since my last contact with them (as a teenager, taking a young woman there to get her hooked up with contraception).

The overall experience made me feel more comfortable being outspokenly pro-choice.

[Evergreen Emerald]

1. I had the same issues with parental notification

Until I realized that, if there was any type of relationship with the parents, that child would not be there alone. And, when I started working with abused children, I saw that those children need as many services and support systems that we can give them.

[kestrel91316]

2. Parental notification laws kill living, breathing young women

with names and faces.

Like Becky Bell. She would be 37 now. Instead she lies in a grave.
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/issues-action/abortion/becky-bell-6153.htm

Never forgive. Never forget.

Women who are not free to decide whether or not they bear children are reproductive slaves. Period.

[Iris]

3. You know, I was thinking about this this a.m. I think some pro-lifers seem to have the idea that

women decide when they get pregnant. And then they decide after the fact whether or not they want a child.

The reason I think this is a few years ago, some politician was trying to assert the idea that a woman can not get pregnant through rape. As if women have some magical powers that determines who they will become pregnant with and when.

When over 50% of pregnancies are unintended (a statistic I hear frequently), then, obviously many women are becoming pregnant with actually trying. But I guess the idea that a woman just magically makes herself pregnant gives the pro-life typse more fodder for maligning women who make the choice not to carry a pregnancy to term.