Opinion ID: 2637239
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The State's Asserted Interests Are Compelling.

Text: The State asserts that the PCA works, on the most generalized level, to advance two interrelated interests: protecting minors from their own immaturity and aiding parents in fulfilling their parental responsibilities. [29] We agree with the State that these are compelling interests. Although the Alaska Constitution extends the right to privacy in equal measure to both minors and adults, it is not blind to the unique vulnerabilities and needs that accompany minority. As we noted in Planned Parenthood I, state interests that are inapplicable to adults may sometimes be compelling with regard to minors. [30] And this is certainly the case with regard to the State's asserted interest in protecting minors from their own immaturity. Lacking in experience, perspective, and judgment, minors often do not possess the capacity to make informed, mature decisions, and are therefore susceptible to a host of pitfalls and dangers unknown in adult life. [31] As we have recognized in the past, the State has a special, indeed compelling, interest in the health, safety, and welfare of its minor citizens and may properly take affirmative steps to safeguard minors from their own immaturity. [32] Insofar as and to the same extent that the State has an interest in protecting minors, so too does it have an interest in aiding parents to fulfill their parental responsibilities. A minor child is not [a] mere creature of the state, [33] and the affirmative process of teaching, guiding, and inspiring [34] a minor child is, in large part, beyond the competence of impersonal political institutions. [35] Parents, therefore, have an important `guiding role' to play in the upbringing of their children. [36] Indeed, it is the right and duty, privilege and burden, of all parents to involve themselves in their children's lives; to provide their children with emotional, physical, and material support; and to instill in their children moral standards, religious beliefs, and elements of good citizenship. [37] We thus echo the United States Supreme Court's statement that, [u]nder the Constitution, the State can `properly conclude that parents . . . who have [the] primary responsibility for children's well-being are entitled to the support of laws designed to aid [in the] discharge of that responsibility.' [38]