Case Title: Ex Parte Anonymous

Citation: 889 So. 2d 525

Docket Number: 

State: alabama

Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Date: 2003-11-17T00:00:00Z

Document:
889 So. 2d 525 (2003)
Ex parte ANONYMOUS.
(In re In the matter of Anonymous, a minor).
1030172.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
November 17, 2003.
PER CURIAM.
This Court, by order of November 7, 2003, reversed the Court of Civil Appeals' judgment and remanded this matter for that court to "remand this cause to the trial court and order that court to detail sufficiently the basis for appropriate findings and immediately to conduct such further proceedings, to include taking additional testimony or admitting further evidence, that may be necessary in order to do so." Ex parte Anonymous, 889 So. 2d 518, 519 (Ala.2003).
The burden of proof with respect to both the maturity/well-informed prong and the best-interest prong of § 26-21-4(f), Ala.Code 1975, lies with the minor. In re Anonymous, 833 So. 2d 75, 78 (Ala.Civ.App.2002). After having reviewed the trial court's order entered on November 13, 2003, on remand, this Court concludes that the trial court's finding as to the maturity/well-informed prong is sufficiently supported by the record. This Court further concludes that the minor failed to carry her burden of proof as to the best-interest *526 prong, particularly in light of the absence of evidence as to the attitude or ability of the minor's father to assist her and as to whether an abortion is in her physical or emotional best interest.
AFFIRMED.
HOUSTON, SEE, LYONS, BROWN, HARWOOD, and STUART, JJ., concur.
JOHNSTONE and WOODALL, JJ., dissent.
JOHNSTONE, Justice (dissenting).
I adhere to the views I expressed in my special writing on original submission. The order of the trial court on return to remand confirms my foreboding that the remand would be only an opportunity for makeweight justification for the original erroneous denial of relief to this minor. Some further observations are appropriate.
The main opinion has judicially created a rule that the minor bears the burden of proving her alternative grounds of relief. These grounds, established by § 26-21-4(f), Ala.Code 1975, are:
The burden of proof on the minor for the ground that "performance of the abortion would be in [her] best interest" is tantamount to a presumption that maintaining the pregnancy to term and bearing the baby is in the minor's best interest. This presumption is so contrary to fact that it constitutes a violation of due process of law.
The Legislature, in its sexual abstinence legislation, § 16-40A-1(a)(1), Ala.Code 1975, has found as fact that:
As Justice Woodall has already observed in his dissent on original submission, discussing abortion in the first trimester as this one would be, the United States Supreme Court stated in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914, 120 S. Ct. 2597, 147 L. Ed. 2d 743 (2000):
530 U.S.  at 923-24, 120 S. Ct. 2597 (emphasis added). Common sense as well militates against a presumption that maintaining a pregnancy to term and bearing a baby are in the best interest of a minor. The minor in this case is a victim of the burden of proof that is tantamount to this presumption.
The minor in this case is also a victim of prejudice against abortion demonstrable from the record. The trial judge gratuitously appointed a guardian ad litem for the fetus and, at the beginning of the minor's hearing, explained the appointment this way:
Gratuitously appointing a guardian ad litem for the "silent voice" casts the inquiry as a contest between a baby struggling to save its own life and the mother fighting to kill the baby. Thus, the trial judge opined, "unfortunately, the law allows this procedure...."
Notwithstanding the trial judge's stated rationale that he should not advocate or cross-examine, he cross-examined the minor on several occasions. One exchange went:
The prejudice against abortion is further manifest in the trial judge's findings of fact upon return to remand. The findings of fact about the best interest of the minor are especially pertinent to this dissent:
Findings 2.C. and 2.E. merely repeat the proposition to be supported. Findings 2.A. and 2.C. utterly disregard the physical, psychological, and social changes, burdens, and pains of maintaining the pregnancy and bearing a baby. Rather, findings 2.A. and 2.C. bespeak the trial judge's own mind-set that the minor should maintain the pregnancy and bear the baby irrespective of those changes, burdens, and pains. Finding 2.B. is faulty for the same reason as well as another. The second reason finding 2.B. is faulty is that it is immaterial to the best-interest ground of relief and is material only to the alternative ground "that the minor is mature and well-informed enough to make the abortion decision on her own." The law entitles the minor to relief if an abortion is in her best interest irrespective of whether she is mature and well-informed enough to make the abortion decision on her own. Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622, 643-44, 99 S. Ct. 3035, 61 L. Ed. 2d 797 (1979).
The same deficiencies in the trial judge's findings of fact that reveal a prejudice against abortion also foreclose the legal sufficiency of these findings of fact to support the judgment of the trial court. Thus, for the second time the trial court has failed to fulfill its fact-finding duty imposed by § 26-21-4(g), Ala.Code 1975, and Rule 2 of the Temporary Rules Governing Procedures for Petitions by an Unemancipated Minor Requesting Waiver of Parental Consent for the Performance of an Abortion.
The facts of record in support of the conclusion that an abortion is in this minor's best interest, the prejudice against abortion revealed by the record, and the legal insufficiency of the fact findings by the trial court all combine to render the judgment of the trial court manifestly unjust and clearly erroneous. Were the burden of proof for the best-interest ground of relief not unconstitutionally placed on the minor, the judgment of the trial court would be even more clearly erroneous. Thus, I respectfully submit that this Court should reverse the judgment of the trial court and render a judgment in favor of the minor.