Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 25, 1990 TAG: 9006250259
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The justices voted 6-3 to uphold an Ohio law requiring that one parent be notified.
The court, by a 5-4 vote, struck down one version of a Minnesota law requiring notification of both parents. By another 5-4 vote, with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor changing sides, the court ruled constitutional a version that allows a minor to get either the approval of both her parents or a judge.
Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion for the court striking down the two-parent notification law.
"This requirement, ostensibly designed for the benefit of the minor, resulted in major trauma to the child, and often to a parent as well," Stevens said. "In some cases, the parents were divorced and the second parent did not have custody or otherwise participate in the child's upbringing."
But in upholding the two-parent notification rule only if a judicial bypass option is included, O'Connor said "the interference with the internal operation of the family" no longer exists.
O'Connor is viewed as a pivotal vote on the future of the court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which legalized abortion. Today marked the first time since joining the court in 1981 that she voted to strike down a state-imposed restriction on abortion.
Today's action did not appear to carry major impact for the Roe vs. Wade decision.
The court's decisions in the Ohio and Minnesota cases yielded nine separate opinions. They offered a patchwork of rationale for upholding the Ohio law in its entirety but striking down the Minnesota law unless a judicial bypass is included.
The court, by a 6-3 vote, said Minnesota's requirement that parental notification come at least 48 hours before an abortion is performed is constitutionally valid. The decisions hold these nationwide guidelines on the regulation of abortions for unmarried minor girls still dependent on one or both parents:
A law requiring that only one parent be notified is constitutional.
States may not require that, in all cases, both natural parents be notified before an abortion is performed.
A law requiring that both parents be notified can be constitutional if it also allows a girl to bypass parental notification by getting a judge's permission for an abortion.
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Byron White voted to uphold the Ohio law requiring notification of one parent.
A provision in the Minnesota law that would have required two-parent notification in all cases was struck down by O'Connor, Stevens, Justices William Brennan, Harry Blackmun and Thurgood Marshall.
But O'Connor left those four in providing the fifth vote for saying that Minnesota's two-parent requirement is valid if accompanied by the judicial bypass option.
Of the 1.5 million legal abortions performed annually since 1973, about 12 percent - some 180,000 a year - have been for minors. An additional 14 percent of all abortions each year are obtained by girls 18 and 19.
Of the 1 million teen-agers who become pregnant each year, more than four in 10 choose to have an abortion.
About half the states have laws requiring parental notification or even parental consent before abortions may be performed on minors, but most of the laws have been invalidated after court challenges.
by CNB