Opinion ID: 2637239
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Individual Right at Stake Is Fundamental.

Text: The plaintiffs assert that the PCA burdens minors' fundamental right to privacy under article I, section 22 of the Alaska Constitution. [21] This section of the constitution maintains that [t]he right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. As we have previously explained, the primary purpose of this section is to protect Alaskans' personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusions by the State. [22] Because this right to privacy is explicit, its protections are necessarily more robust and broader in scope than those of the implied federal right to privacy. [23] Included within the broad scope of the Alaska Constitution's privacy clause is the fundamental right to reproductive choice. As we have stated in the past, few things are more personal than a woman's control of her body, including the choice of whether and when to have children, and that choice is therefore necessarily protected by the right to privacy. [24] Of course, our original decision concerning the fundamental right to reproductive choice specifically addressed only the privacy interests of adult women, but because the uniquely personal physical, psychological, and economic implications of the abortion decision . . . are in no way peculiar to adult women, [25] its reasoning was and continues to be as applicable to minors as it is to adults. [26] Thus, in Planned Parenthood I, we explicitly extended the fundamental reproductive rights guaranteed by the privacy clause to minors. [27] In the case at hand, the PCA requires minors to secure either the consent of their parent or judicial authorization before they may exercise their uniquely personal reproductive freedoms. This requirement no doubt places a burden on minors' fundamental right to privacy. As such, the PCA must be subjected to strict scrutiny and can only survive review if it advances a compelling state interest using the least restrictive means of achieving that interest. [28]