Your editorial positions on the various initiatives slated for the Nov. 8 ballot have been fairly well-researched and informative. In the Oct. 24 column on Proposition 73 urging a "no" vote, however, you made some very important omissions and came to a faulty conclusion.

For example, the Register did not have the courage to even identify the measure as the "Parents' Right to Know and Child Protection Initiative" cited in the voters' guide. This title really says it all. Was it too risky to omit the topic of your column? You state that the proposition "merely seeks one requirement on one group of women..." (unemancipated minors). In reality the proposition places a legal and moral requirement where it should be: on medical professionals and indirectly on the parents. In fact, it places decisions where there is, in most cases, a maximum of love and support in difficult situations -- the family. A pregnant teen will be under tremendous stress, but the first and almost always the least harmful institution society has evolved to deal with such situations is the family.

I agree with your disturbing statistic that more than two-thirds of 46,000 California teens become pregnant as a result of liaisons with adult men. More precisely, men whose average age is 22.6 have impregnated these 32,000 minors. According to California law, this is a crime called statutory rape and is punishable by severe jail terms. Without passage of Proposition 73, a large percentage of these girls run the risk of undergoing an abortion and being returned to the abuser.

Yes, abortion and teen pregnancy rates are dropping, but we need to be careful about where we attribute the cause. Researchers are still divided on whether it was caused by legalization and improved education or by pro-life legislation upheld by pro-life judges. And, please -- spare us the implication that these unwanted pregnancies mainly happen in "shattered" families. These situations occur in all types of families regardless of socio-economic status.

No mention was made of agencies that support the opposition. Doing research by "following the money" easily identifies Planned Parenthood as the major donor for the "no" vote. Naturally, this organization would not want to see parents involved in what they consider their business, plus lose the money generated by the abortion industry.

When the California parental consent law was struck down eight years ago, the decision was based on a minor's privacy rights. Truth be known, minors have never had the full complement of "rights" under constitutional law. Privacy considerations are not granted to minors for the purpose of obtaining tattoos or body piercing, aspirins or cold medication, or any other medical procedures than abortion. Is that logical? Is that right?

You state that such a law is impractical for minors when making a "... difficult medical and moral decision." Difficult? Yes, very. But since when has morality ever been practical? That is the very essence of a moral decision -- very inconvenient and extremely difficult, but right.

Finally, your readers should have been made aware that almost 70 percent of the states have some type of notification law on the books. Is the rest of the country out of step, or is it just California?

Keep in mind, Napa County voters, Proposition 73 is a parental rights issue. To make it easy to bypass parents in this most delicate of circumstances is to undermine the most important element of social cohesion in a free society. Vote "Yes" on 73!

(Haupt lives in Napa.)