So, again, the abortion issue has been put back on the table. About as welcome as meatloaf, you bear it when you must, but you keep hoping that this time will be the last.

On the surface, Prop 73 seems like a reasonable idea. Undeniably, parents have the right to know what their children are up to, particularly when it involves such certain and steep consequences. The proposition is wrapped in the warm blanket of familial duty and the urgent need to protect our children. Protecting kids is a very legitimate concern, and in this haywire world, it’s no easy endeavor.

But, if you pause and inhale deeply, you’ll probably catch the familiar funk of political agenda and whispered threats to backpedal into the good ol’ days when women had the self-respect to take care of such undignified matters in the privacy of their own homes,…and if a woman were feeling a bit uneasy, she could always turn to the service of an entrepreneurial neighbor with a good sized kitchen table. A shot of whiskey and you’re ready to go.

Probably one of the most foreboding aspects of Proposition 73 is the deliberate modification of the definition of abortion as causing “death of the unborn child, a child conceived but not yet born.”

It’s also disquieting that the bulk of the financial support, the wizard behind the velvet curtain, is publisher and anti-abortion activist, James Holman. He tossed a few coins into the effort, something to the tune of $1.1 million. Holman, a staunch Catholic, who attends church daily, also manages to find time to publish four Catholic papers and the weekly San Diego Reader.

Holman believes in life, no matter what the cost. No one can fault him for that. But, when a Proposition is being pushed by someone with his beliefs, and when they start playing games with accepted definitions, it begins to makes a person skittish—a person who values their Constitutional rights, that is. There is the ominous suggestion of more to come, that the path is being cleared for future renovations.

It is reasonable that parents want to know what their kids are doing and what challenges they face. But, at what cost?

Forget that this could be just one step backwards into a dark history where women had to hide their burdens in the shadows. But, when you take the confidentiality out of a procedure as psychologically and physically traumatic as an abortion, you’re taking away a sense of security and replacing it with a virtually insurmountable wall.

If a girl is too ashamed or terrified to tell her parents that she’s pregnant, she will do anything to avoid having that conversation. And, with or without laws, she will find her means. Should the market require it, there is certain to be a convenient black market system providing these services at reasonable prices.

It is up to parents to ensure that their daughters are not too frightened or ashamed to come to them with such dilemmas. Only parents can protect their children from the pitfalls of adolescence and they can do so only by arming them for the big, ugly world. No law has ever stopped a kid from doing careless things before. It won’t stop them now.

Most parents might support Proposition 73 because they believe that’s what a caring parent should do. A parent’s only interest is to protect their kids. But, they mustn’t overlook the interests of those behind this. A proposition backed by anti-abortion money isn’t concerned about protecting your children so much as it is interested in protecting the ones “as yet unborn.”