It has been suggested that the Court's decisions are motivated by personal ideology. To the contrary, every member of this Court agrees that the duty of a judge is to follow the law as written by the Legislature. This case is no different. The Court's decision is based on the language of the Parental Notification Act as written by the Legislature and on established rules of construction. Any suggestion that something else is going on is simply wrong.
Legislative intent is the polestar of statutory construction.
Our role as judges requires that we put aside our own personal views of what we might like to see enacted, and instead do our best to discern what the Legislature actually intended. We take the words of the statute as the surest guide to legislative intent. See id. at 866. Once we discern the Legislature's intent we must put it into effect, even if we ourselves might have made different policy choices. The starting point for understanding the Parental Notification Act is its provision that a medical professional may not perform an abortion on a minor without first notifying one of the parents.