187-190 Donovan

Volume 29, Number 4, July/August 1997 language would, in practice, have serious unintended consequences, such as nullifying laws allowing minors to obtain confidential reproductive health care and other sensitive health services, disrupting school sex education and AIDS prevention activities, and impeding the removal of children from abusive homes. However, the outcome also appears to reflect a failure on the part of the amendment’s supporters to mount a serious campaign. “They thought Of The People’s deep pockets and the public’s perception that parents have rights were all it would take,”6 observes Patrick Steadman, deputy campaign manager for Protect Our Children, the coalition that opposed the amendment. Steadman and others believe that the race might have been much closer if the proponents had mounted an effective campaign. This article, which is based in part on interviews conducted early in 1997 with key members of Protect Our Children, describes the strategies and tactics that opponents to the parental rights amendment used in their campaign to defeat it. Given that activists in other states have formulated similar measures (a parental rights bill similar to the Colorado amendment was subsequently defeated in the Virginia legislature), ballot initiatives and legislative proposals along these lines may resurface in other states in upcoming years.