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October 2, 2006
It always
happens. Every time our daughter arrives with a medical malady, it’s
always the same. Last time it was a headache. Jamie dragged herself
in the front door and asked me if I had any aspirin. “Sure,” I said,
“in the bathroom.”
Dropping her
purse to the floor, she made a beeline around the corner. From the
kitchen, I heard loud sighs, harrumphs, and plunks as she threw one
bottle after the next into the waste can. Stomping out of bathroom,
she grabbed her car keys. I didn’t have to ask where she was going.
I knew.
Throwing her
purse over her shoulder, she knew I knew. But she told me anyway…just
to make a point. “I can’t believe it. Don’t you know you’re supposed
to throw medicines away after they expire!”
Expiration dates
are a big thing in my household only because my children are the
official expiration cops who write me up. Grown now, and on their
own, they have their work cut out for themselves when they come for a
visit. Everything is suspect. No family dinner is safe until the
fridge is detoxed of outdated cans and boxes.
Expiration dates
are also becoming a big thing in America… impacting more than aspirin
and cheese. Much more.
One day…the day
they bring their precious baby home from the hospital, parents are in
charge. They are expected to watch over every detail that might
impact their children…sugar content, child seats, exercise habits,
television, homework, playmates and transfats. Parents are in
control.
Then one day…one
undefined day, when they aren’t aware of anything being different,
parents expire. They don’t expire because they are tired of being
parents. They expire because society is tired of listening to
parents.
Case in point,
the Senate heads home this week after failing to bring Senate Bill 403
to a vote. It is a sign that parents have passed their expiration
date. Once allowed oversight over the health of their children,
parents are no longer deemed necessary for oversight of a major
life-impacting surgery performed on their daughters, abortion.
The Child
Custody Protection Act would have reaffirmed the parent’s right and
responsibilities to oversee the healthcare of their daughters. It
supported state parental notification laws already in existence. But
the Senate, in their wisdom, noted the expiration date on parents and
declared that they were irrelevant.
Parents are
passing their useful life all over the country. But you can’t tell it
by looking at them. Neither can you tell it by talking with them.
The easiest way to tell that they have reached their expiration date
is by noting the actions of those who would thwart their involvement
in the lives of their children.
In Mesa,
Arizona, a presenter announced the opening of a health clinic
specifically targeting teens. She said they had set a sign out on the
sidewalk so that kids on the way home from school would have to
literally step over it. She said, figuratively, that clinic workers
were so anxious to reach teens that they might even go out to the
sidewalk themselves to “get” the teens. Where were the parents?
Expired.
Around the
country, Planned Parenthood offices and other like-minded
organizations reach out to students with “confidential” birth
control. The parents? Expired.
Then, when the
“confidential” birth control fails, children may purchase an
abortion. In Arizona, Governor Napolitano this year vetoed a bill
requiring notarized signatures on parental consent forms. Once again,
she tuned her ear to the cries of Planned Parenthood. In spite of
convincing testimony from parents that signatures are easily forged or
falsified, the Governor ignored the will of parents in Arizona. She
must have noticed their expiration date.
Around the
country, parents’ efforts to stay connected to their children is under
assault. As the number rises for states passing laws providing for
parental consent and notification, so, too, rises the number of
assaults on these laws.
Now, thanks to
the U.S. aSenate, even when an effective parental notification law is
in place, it doesn’t matter. It should matter. But it doesn’t.
Anyone can transport a minor across state lines to circumvent the law
that upholds a parent’s right to be involved in an abortion decision.
Expired.
I get a headache
thinking about the next time Jamie might arrive with a headache of her
own. It’s been over a year since she bought my last bottle of
aspirin. It’s probably expired by now.
It could be
worse. Thankfully, she is grown and safe from the social engineers
who are redesigning America. I hate to think what she would do if she
knew her mom had passed the expiration date for parents.
Copyright © 2006 Jane Jimenez
December 26, 2005
Small Acts of Courage
June 6, 2005
Planned Parenthood's War Against Choice
See Archives
for past editorials.
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