Monday, May 23, 2005

Must Parental Consent Laws Have a Health Exception?

From the SCOTUS blog:
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide a long-unsettled issue of abortion law: the standard to be used in judging the constitutionality of a restriction on a women's right to end a pregnancy. The question is whether such a restriction is to be upheld if there is any circumstance in which it could be applied constitutionally. The Court for some time has not followed that approach, but has never explicitly repudiated it.

The issue arises in the case of Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (docket 04-1144). The case also raises the question whether a parental consent law for minors' abortions must contain a health exception. At issue is such a law enacted in New Hampshire in 2003.
My Comments:
If a "health" exception is "constitutionally" mandated for parental consent or notification laws, then the laws are completely worthless. Since "health" has been jucicially defined to include mental and emotional health, the "health" exception to abortion legislation is the proverbial exception that swallows the rule.

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