Supremes Take Another Abortion Case
The Supreme Court is going to hear another abortion case that concerns parental notification when a minor seeks an abortion.
Sabrina Holmquist trained as a physician in low-income neighborhoods in the Bronx, N.Y. She says she often saw pregnant teenagers in desperate health and family crises, including some girls who had been abused at home. That, Holmquist says, led her to believe that doctors sometimes should be able to perform abortions on minors without informing a parent.
But in Texas, Linda W. Flower, who practiced obstetrics for two decades, disagrees. She says that in the vast majority of cases in which a teenage girl seeks an abortion, a parent’s guidance is helpful and needed. Flower says she knows of young women who have regretted having abortions.
The doctors’ views reflect the dueling arguments in the first abortion case to come before the Supreme Court in five years: a New Hampshire dispute that tests whether a state may bar physicians from performing an abortion on a girl younger than 18 unless one of her parents has been notified at least 48 hours in advance - even in instances in which the girl faces a health emergency.
The case, to be heard by the court Wednesday, is the first abortion dispute before the justices since 2000, when they voted 5-4 to strike down Nebraska’s ban on a procedure that critics call “partial birth” abortion because the ban lacked an exception for cases in which the woman’s health was at risk. The new dispute tests whether such a health exception should be required in parental-involvement mandates, which have been passed in various forms by 43 states.
If the Supreme Court holds that a young girl cannot get an abortion without parental consent when she’s facing a health emergency or some kind of retaliation from her parents, we will know who among the Justices does not value the life or liberty of our most vulnerable citizens.
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