DATE: Friday, July 4, 1997                  TAG: 9707040527

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   27 lines

JUDGE WHO UPHELD PARENTAL NOTIFICATION CITED PEOPLE'S WILL

The judge who kept Virginia's new restriction on teenage abortions alive this week said why Thursday: The people want it, so the courts should let them have it.

``If the necessary but awesome power of the federal judiciary is to be respected,'' wrote federal appellate judge Michael Luttig, ``it must respect the People and their institutions of government - even in the matters most profound.''

Luttig actually had 36 pages of reasons for reversing U.S. District Judge James C. Turk of Roanoke, who suspended the parental notification law for minors seeking abortions. Luttig made his decision Monday night, allowing the law to take effect at midnight. His reasoning wasn't released until Thursday.

Turk misinterpreted the Supreme Court when he found a ``substantial likelihood'' that the law is unconstitutional, wrote Luttig, of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Turk's reasoning might apply to parental consent laws, which could lead to denying young women abortions, but not to a simple notification law like Virginia's, Luttig wrote.

A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit is considering whether Luttig should be reversed and the law suspended again.

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