Stop the hypocrisy

Editor: The time has come to correct a great injustice in California, a state that has exemplified forward thinking and progressive thought for many years. It seems we have laws on our books that are designed to protect our most intimate and self-evident rights, while at the same time maintaining unjust and ill-conceived statutes that erode at the fabric of those same rights. The inconsistency is obvious; it is nothing but blatant hypocrisy born from fear.

The time has come to repeal so-called "statutory rape" laws.

The people of California have long held that women and girls of reproductive age should have full control over their reproductive systems -- it is her body, therefore it is her choice. No one is able to force their beliefs about her reproductive system upon her. To do so would be a violation of her reproductive freedom, as well as her body. Even to the point of setting aside lesser-held notions of minors' inability to consent to medical procedures. These are the arguments used to defend abortion rights.

Since minors have a choice of whether they can have an abortion based on "my body, my choice," shouldn't "my body, my choice" extend to the prerequisites of abortion? Right now, minors of a certain age are considered incapable of providing consent for sex.

How can we say a girl's control of her uterus is absolute for a surgical procedure but not for a brief, natural act keeping with the very function of the same organs?

How can she give consent for a medical procedure while a prerequisite act for the procedure is supposedly beyond her capacity? She can weigh the far-reaching implications of whether or not she will give birth, but can't weigh whether she should have intercourse? This seems like some type of pro-life conspiracy to undermine the abortion rights of minors.

This is blatant hypocrisy. It's either "her body, her choice," or it is not. We need to repeal statutory rape laws in support of the reproductive decision-making ability of minors.

JP Prichard

Hanford

(Jan. 3, 2008)