No one is framing Ballot Measure 2 as a direct referendum on abortion, but if it passes, it will make it harder for teenage girls in Alaska to get one.

The contentious initiative promotes parental involvement before teens can get an abortion. Voters will decide Tuesday whether it should become law.

As it stands, a girl of any age can get an abortion in Alaska without telling her parents, though abortion clinics say that in practice most teens come in with a parent or other trusted adult.

The measure requires parents to be notified at least two days before their minor daughter obtains an abortion unless the teen goes to court or presents notarized statements about abuse in the home.

"Parents have a right to know, and their right to know is essential to the health and safety of our children," said Bernadette Wilson, campaign manager for Alaskans for Parental Rights, the group campaigning for the ballot measure.

Opponents, organized as Alaskans Against Government Mandates, say not all girls can safely approach their parents about an abortion, and it's not realistic for girls in crisis to go to court to avoid letting their parents know.

"The government simply can't mandate good family communication, and most teens facing these types of crisis situations already involve a parent, which is a good thing," said Rhiannon Good, campaign manager for Alaskans Against Government Mandates. "Our concern is that this type of intrusive government mandate puts bureaucrats and the courts in the middle of our families' most private affairs. And it doesn't protect those vulnerable teens who simply cannot talk to their parents."

Both sides have been campaigning furiously, and both say they are mainly interested in the health and well-being of the pregnant teen.

The vote "No" side has raised for more money, more than $800,000, and is bombarding the airwaves with television and radio ads. The group supporting the ballot measure has raised about $150,000. They say people will be exposed to plenty of ads from them in these last days before the vote.

125 TEEN ABORTIONS

The issue of parents' involvement in their teen's abortion has long divided Alaskans.

The state Legislature passed a law in 1997 over the veto of then-Gov. Tony Knowles that said pregnant teens had to get the approval of their parents or a judge before having an abortion, but it never took effect because of court challenges. In 2007, the state Supreme Court, in a 3-2 decision, struck down the law, saying it robbed a pregnant teen of her constitutional right to make such an important decision. Then Chief Justice Dana Fabe, writing for the majority, left the door open for a law requiring parental notification.

Now voters are being asked to consider such a measure.

"This is not parental consent, nor is this parental permission. This is parental notification only," Wilson emphasized.

A slight majority of Alaskans is pro-choice, but most people think it makes sense for parents to be notified if their teen daughter seeks an abortion, said Anchorage pollster David Dittman, who is working for the group promoting the ballot measure.

Thirty-four states require some kind of parental involvement, including 24 that require a parent to give consent, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research organization.

Last year in Alaska, 125 teens age 17 and under received abortions, the lowest number since the state began requiring doctors to report abortion data in 2003, according to the state Bureau of Vital Statistics. Overall, 1,938 women got abortions in Alaska last year.

Both the teen birth and abortion rates are dropping in Alaska. From 1999 to 2009, the birth rate in Alaska fell nearly 14 percent, according to the bureau. Since 2003, the abortion rate has dropped 24 percent.

THE ARGUMENTS

Backers say parents must give permission for their children to get a Tylenol at school or have their ears pierced, so it's nonsense that they have no right to be involved in something as serious as an abortion. What if there's infection or bleeding? Wilson asks. What if their daughter becomes depressed?

Opponents say that argument trivializes the issue for teens from difficult or abusive homes. They may not be afraid to ask their parents for an aspirin but telling about an abortion is a different matter, Good said.

They may not go to the doctor at all, or wait until they are further along and an abortion is riskier, Good said. They may have a baby they don't want. Or they may try to abort the fetus themselves, though some experts say that is rare.

Anyway, teens already can get certain types of health care besides abortions without their parents' knowledge: birth control, testing for sexually transmitted disease, prenatal care.

The backers say teens from troubled homes can get help by explaining their home situation to a judge, as provided for in the proposed law.

Pro-choice advocates counter that going to court is cumbersome and intimidating even for adults. Research has shown in other states that the court option often doesn't work well in teen abortion cases, said Elizabeth Nash, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy associate for Guttmacher.

She said ground-breaking work was done by Helena Silverstein, a college professor in Pennsylvania and author of the 2007 book "Girls on the Stand: How Courts Fail Pregnant Minors." Silverstein uncovered a host of problems, including judges who don't know how to handle these cases, judges who oppose abortion and always rule against the girl, and judges who appoint a lawyer for the fetus.

"It's not this simple idea: Well, she can't talk to her parent, she'll just go to court," Nash said. "It's kind of a double whammy."

Such girls often do get help if they go to an abortion provider themselves and explain their home situation on their own terms, Nash said. Abortion clinic workers and doctors are required to report suspected abuse to authorities and do so, said Ashley Rousson, Alaska public affairs manager for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest.

Backers of the measure disagree that going to court would be that difficult.

"She can talk to a judge on the phone," Wilson said. She pointed to the example of Florida, where a lawmaker says it's too easy for a girl to go the court route and is trying to toughen the law there.

While the campaigns aren't billing Measure 2 as such, "this is absolutely a restriction on abortion," Nash said.

THE TEXAS EXPERIENCE

While there have been studies of how parental involvement laws affect abortion rates, a number failed to consider that many teens simply crossed state lines to somewhere that didn't require parent involvement, according to an analysis Guttmacher Institute published in 2009.

For Alaska teens, such travel would be more challenging, though Washington state doesn't have any parental involvement laws.

One study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 examined the situation in Texas, where most neighboring states also have parental involvement laws, according to the Guttmacher analysis.

Researchers factored in that abortion rates already are dropping nationally and found that after the parental notification law took effect in Texas in 2000, abortion rates among teens ages 15 to 17 fell 11 to 20 percent more than the rate among 18-year-olds, who weren't affected by parental notification.

They also considered the teen's age at conception and found that girls who were at least 17 1/2 often delayed their abortion until they were 18 and didn't have to tell a parent. Texas since has changed its law so that parents must give consent for a teen's abortion.

Planned Parenthood officials say they believe most teens in Alaska already come to the clinic with a parent or another trusted adult.

There doesn't appear to be recent research on that point, but a national study published in 1992 found that six in 10 teens told a parent, usually their mother. Of those who didn't tell, most were older, white and employed. About one-third who didn't tell said there was violence at home or they feared violence or being forced out.

The most common reasons for not telling? Wanting to preserve their relationship with their parents and wanting to avoid stress and conflict.

LINING UP

Backers of Measure 2 are boosted by prominent Republican candidates urging "Yes on 2" on their own campaign signs. Mead Treadwell, a candidate for lieutenant governor, has been one of the top three contributors to the effort, so his name is mentioned on the Measure 2 broadcast ads.

Another top contributor is Sean McLaughlin, a businessman whose wife just gave birth to their 10th child, Gianna Beretta, named after an Italian doctor canonized as a saint after refusing to abort her fetus in a difficult pregnancy and dying after giving birth. The biggest contributor is the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization.

The vote "Yes" effort is endorsed by the Alaska Republican Party, various conservative groups, politicians, pastors and doctors.

The vote "No" side is being funded largely by various Planned Parenthood groups and the Americans for Civil Liberties Union. A South Anchorage resident, Robin Smith, who has served on the Planned Parenthood board of directors, is another top donor.