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Related links Texas Abortion Rights and Reproductive Rights Action League |
Abortion allowed without parental notification
Posted
3-20-2000 Houston. The Texas Supreme Court gave permission to a minor to have an abortion without notifying her parents. The March 10 decision reverses a lower court ruling and was the first such decision by the all-Republican Supreme Court since the state’s parental notification law went into effect Jan. 1. That law allows unmarried girls under 18 to bypass the notification requirement if, in a closed hearing, they can prove to a judge that they are mature and well informed enough to make an abortion decision on their own or that telling their parents would be harmful. According to court documents, the 17-year-old became pregnant three months ago and filed her case in Harris County. An unidentified Harris County judge originally ruled that she was not medically well informed, and three weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed. But the justices sent the case back for another hearing, ruling that there was a lack of legal guidelines for defining the term "sufficiently well informed." The lower court again ruled against the girl and that decision was upheld at the intermediate appeals level. In its initial decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a girl seeking a judicial bypass is not required to read abortion materials from both pro-choice and anti-abortion groups. But she must show she has received information from reliable medical sources about the potential health risks of abortion and the alternatives. "A lot of what the Supreme Court is doing is giving guidelines to the lower courts on how to interpret the parental notification law," explained Collyn Peddie, the girl’s attorney, who did not reveal whether the girl had undergone the abortion.
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