Supreme Court rules in favor of pro-life groups

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court released an opinion today in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, unanimously vacating lower court decisions that had struck down a New Hampshire law protecting young women and families by requiring minors to notify a parent prior to an abortion.

“The Supreme Court rejected the extreme legal standards demanded by abortionists challenging laws regulating abortion,” said Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence.

“This decision is certainly a stumbling block to the pro-abortion movement,” added Chief Litigation Counsel Steven H. Aden of the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom.  “No longer will abortionists be able to have statutory restrictions on abortion struck down completely simply because a judge believes that they could pose constitutional problems in unusual, hypothetical cases.”

ADF and CLS filed a friend-of-the-court brief in August urging the Supreme Court to reject Planned Parenthood’s challenge to the New Hampshire Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act.  The brief was filed on behalf of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Christian Medical Association, the Catholic Medical Association, the National Association of Evangelicals, and Concerned Women for America.

The brief set forth medical evidence refuting Planned Parenthood’s contention that young girls must obtain immediate abortions whenever acute medical complications occur during pregnancy.

“New Hampshire’s statute properly recognizes the role of parents in serving the best interests of their children with regard to important medical decisions,” said Aden.  

The lower courts ruled to permanently invalidate the act because it would not allow for an exception to the parental notification rule in cases of acute medical complications.  The Supreme Court overturned their decisions today ruling that “the lower courts need not have invalidated the law wholesale.”

The court’s decision, written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, also suggests the court might have ruled differently in its 2000 partial-birth abortion case, Stenberg v. Carhart, if it had been asked to merely limit the reach of the Nebraska statute in that case rather than strike it down completely.

Together, ADF, America’s largest legal alliance, and CLS, America’s premier membership organization of Christian legal professionals, defend religious liberty, human life, marriage, and the family.