

San Diego Reader Founder Pushes Another Anti-Abortion Ballot Measure

Jim Holman is back at it again. The San Diego Reader founder and publisher of the ultra-religious website California Catholic Daily is putting his money where his mouth is regarding his anti-abortion beliefs. The San Diego CityBeat reports that Holman is pushing yet another ballot measure in the state of California to require notification be given to the parents of minors who are seeking abortions. Holman’s last effort, Prop 4, was narrowly defeated in 2008. This measure is his fourth attempt to make parental notification the law of the land.

A little context from CityBeat:

The first measure, Prop. 73, would have redefined abortion in the state Constitution as “the death of the unborn child….” That wording disappeared from 2006’s Prop. 85. For 2008’s Prop. 4, backers came up with a politically appealing official title—“Parental Notification, Child and Teen Safety, and Stop Predators Act”—and the short title “Sarah’s Law.” Sarah, they said, was a teen who got pregnant by an older man, had an abortion without her parents’ knowledge, contracted an infection and died. Planned Parenthood’s opposition researchers did some digging and found out that Sarah was really Jammie Yanez-Villegas who lived in Texas and was impregnated by her common-law husband—meaning she wouldn’t be subject to any parental-notification law, let alone one in California.

Of the two petitions currently in the signature-gathering phase— both with the same title as Prop. 4—one version requires a 48-hour waiting period between notification and when the abortion can be performed; the other version doesn’t.

With the San Diego Union-Tribune‘s takeover by Prop 8 backer Douglas Manchester, Holman’s effort is yet another reminder that a strong conservative advocacy media machine is growing in Southern California.

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