Ridiculous Statement of the Day

With apologies to whats-his-name at Fox News, today's Ridiculous Statement of the Day comes from Planned Parenthood of Oregon, reacting to the news that state residents will vote on a ballot measure requiring that parents receive 48 hours' notification prior to their teenage daughter's abortion:

Planned Parenthood says the measure is unnecessary because teen pregnancy has declined 39 percent since Oregon voters defeated a similar measure in 1990.

That's great that teen pregnancy has declined. But replace the abortion issue with something else. How about:

A measure increasing penalties against child kidnapping is unnecessary because the rate of child kidnapping has declined 39 percent in the last 15 years.

Or maybe:

A measure imposing harsher penalties on adults involved in child pornography is unnecessary because the rate of child porn has declined 39 percent in the last 15 years.

Leave it to PPO to dwell on the minutae in their search for excuses why I shouldn't know about my daughter's major surgery. In any other issue, the rate of decline would be irrelevant if kids were still in harm's way. And the fact that teen pregnancy has declined 39 percent in the last 15 years is somewhat irrelevant when you learn that, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, almost 10,000 Oregon teens got pregnant in the year 2000.

Ten thousand. That's as many people as live in 2-1/2 square miles of Portland.

Never mind that parents must be informed about any other procedure (ear piercing, tattoos, over-the-counter medication, etc.). Never mind that 44 states have such a measure on the books, and that such notification has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Never mind that the measure has a judicial process in place for a minor child to bypass the notification in cases of rape, incest or other unpleasant situations at home (don't let opponents tell you otherwise -- they're lying).

It's not necessary because 10,000 of your daughters (but it's down from 13,000 a few years ago!) could have walked into Planned Parenthood, paid for major surgery (possibly on the credit card of their adult boyfriend?) and walked out again without you ever hearing about it?

Hmmm...