Court Opinion

ID: 9715631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:10:30.378582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:36.444930
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
dissenting.
By casting this statute as one that strikes at “the fundamental right of a woman to control her body and destiny,” ante at 612, 762 A.2d at 621, the Court finds the uncomplicated act of parental notification or waiver thereof to create an undue burden on reproductive rights. The Court’s language gives a misleading impression that the statute unduly regulates or forbids the abortion procedure itself. The statute does not. By characterizing the issue in such broad terms, the Court has forsaken traditional constitutional analysis. As Justice Breyer recently observed in Stenberg v. Carhart:
We understand the controversial nature of the problem. Millions of Americans believe that life begins at conception and consequently that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child; they recoil at the thought of a law that would permit it. Other millions fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity, depriving them of equal liberty and leading those with least resources to undergo illegal abortions with the attendant risks of death and suffering. Taking account of these virtually irreconcilable points of view, aware that constitutional law must govern a society whose different members sincerely hold directly opposing views ... [is a considerable task.]
[ 530 U.S. 914, —, 120 S.Ct. 2597, 147 L.Ed.2d 743..]
Yet, “[t]o declare a statute unconstitutional is a judicial power to be delicately exercised.” Harvey v. Essex County Bd. of Freeholders, 30 N.J. 381, 388, 153 A.2d 10 (1959)(quoting Wilentz v. Hendrickson, 133 N.J. Eq. 447, 487, 33 A.2d 366 (Ch.1943)). A *644legislative act should not be declared void unless its repugnancy to the Constitution is clear beyond a reasonable doubt. Gangemi v. Berry, 25 N.J. 1, 10, 134 A.2d 1 (1957). Although the Court has declared unconstitutional the State’s Parental Notification for Abortion Act, I dissent because the repugnancy of the law to the Constitution of the State of New Jersey is not clear beyond a reasonable doubt.
I.
In reviewing a similar legislative pattern, the United States Supreme Court has held that there is no federal constitutional impediment to the law. Initially, the Court had struck down state laws requiring parental consent and notification before a pregnant minor may have an abortion. In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 96 S.Ct. 2831, 49 L.Ed.2d 788 (1976), the Court’s first ruling on the issue, a one-parent consent requirement was held unconstitutional. The Court held that a state might not impose this type of “blanket provision” because the statute gave a third party a veto over the abortion decision. Id. at 74, 96 S.Ct. 2831. On the same day, however, the Court handed down its initial holding in Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 96 S.Ct. 2857, 49 L.Ed.2d 844 (1976). Bellotti explained that “a statute that prefers parental consultation and consent, but that permits a mature minor capable of giving informed consent to obtain, without undue burden, an order permitting the abortion without parental consultation” would be fundamentally different from a statute that creates a “parental veto.” Id. at 145, 96 S.Ct. 2857. In Bellotti II, the Court explained that a parental consent requirement accompanied by an alternative procedure that permits a pregnant minor to bypass her parents’ involvement would pass muster: “[EJvery minor must have the opportunity — if she so desires — to go directly to a court without first consulting or notifying her parents.” 443 U.S. 622, 647, 99 S.Ct. 3035, 3050, 61 L.Ed.2d 797 (1979). In H.L. v. Matheson, 450 U.S. 398, 408-09, 101 S.Ct. 1164, 1171, 67 L.Ed.2d 388 (1981), concerning a Utah *645statute requiring parental notification, the Court again expressed its view that a valid bypass option must accompany parental involvement requirements.
Three later cases illustrate that the Court’s acceptance of parental consent and notification requirements rests on the availability of an effective judicial bypass option. In Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417, 423, 110 S.Ct. 2926, 2931, 111 L.Ed.2d 344, 353 (1990), the Court held that Minnesota’s two-parent notification requirement, without the option of judicial bypass, was unconstitutional. However, a different majority of the Court also held that the law’s judicial bypass option was constitutional. Id. at 423, 110 S.Ct. 2926. On the same day, the Court ruled in Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S. 502, 506-07, 110 S.Ct. 2972, 2977, 111 L.Ed.2d 405, 416 (1990), that an Ohio statute that prohibited the performance of an abortion on a minor without the consent of a parent or a judicial bypass was constitutional. Finally, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 899, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 2832, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992), the Court found Pennsylvania’s parental consent requirement with its judicial bypass alternative to be constitutional. The Court summarized its reasoning in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, stating that the woman’s right to seek an abortion, while constitutionally protected, is not absolute. “Only where state regulation imposes an undue burden on a woman’s ability to make this decision does the power of the State reach into the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause.” Id. at 874, 112 S.Ct. 2791.
Finally, in Lambert v. Wicklund, 520 U.S. 292, 117 S.Ct. 1169, 137 L.Ed.2d 464 (1997), the Court approved a notification statute much like the New Jersey Act. The Minnesota statute prohibited a physician from performing an abortion on a minor unless the physician had notified one of the minor’s parents or the minor’s legal guardian forty-eight hours in advance. Id. at 293, 117 S.Ct. 1169. The statute, like the New Jersey law, also provided for a judicial bypass procedure under which a court could waive the *646notification requirement if certain statutory criteria, similar to New Jersey’s Act, were met. Id. at 293-94, 117 S.Ct. 1169.
The Court held that this statute, providing a judicial bypass procedure that is indistinguishable from New Jersey’s, passed constitutional muster. Id. at 299, 117 S.Ct. 1169. The Court found that result to be fully consistent with its previous decisions in Bellotti, supra, and Akron Center, supra. Id. at 295-98, 117 S.Ct. 1169. From those decisions, we derive the principle that only state regulations that place an undue burden on a woman’s right to seek an abortion are unconstitutional. “A finding of an undue burden is a shorthand for the conclusion that a state regulation has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.” Planned Parenthood v. Casey, supra, 505 U.S. at 877, 112 S.Ct. 2791. Such a burden would be imposed on minors, the Court has held, should parental involvement requirements fail to include a bypass alternative of the sort elaborated in Bellotti II, supra, 443 U.S. at 647-48, 99 S.Ct. 3035.
II.
Acting pursuant to the guidance provided by the United States Supreme Court, the New Jersey Legislature has crafted a law that fully complies with constitutional requirements. It has provided for one-parent notification with a speedy judicial bypass option. A judge considering such a request must make a determination within forty-eight hours or the application will be deemed to be granted. An expedited and confidential appeal is available. No filing fees are required. Every effort has been made to facilitate the implementation of the Act. On September 8,1999, the Administrative Director of the Courts issued Directive No. 10-99 to all Superior Court judges, setting forth specific and detailed procedures for implementation of the Act. If there is any problem with those procedures, the Court should correct its procedures rather than to invalidate the law. The trial court found that New Jersey’s law provided even more protections than the Lambert *647statute by, for example, providing for a faster resolution of the appeal process through immediate mail notice and by permitting a minor’s guardian, rather than a parent, to be notified in appropriate cases. 1999 WL 1138605, *15-16 (N.J.Super.Ch. Div.). The Chancery Division upheld the law in all respects.
III.
A.
Because the law is plainly constitutional under federal law, the only question is whether it violates the New Jersey Constitution. Rather than to reinvent the analysis, we shall simply restate Justice Pollock’s exposition of the principles governing the constitutionality of state legislation that is set forth in Greenberg v. Kimmelman, 99 N.J. 552, 494 A.2d 294 (1985).
Throughout [the 20th] century, the United States Supreme Court has alternately resorted to the due process and the equal protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment to invalidate various forms of state legislation. Although both clauses are available as a means of protecting against unjustified state regulation of individual rights, they protect against different evils. Whén a court invalidates a statute on due process grounds, the court is saying, in effect, that the statute seeks to promote the state interest by impermissible means. In contrast, when a court declares a statute invalid on equal protection grounds, it is not saying that the legislative means are forbidden, but that the Legislature must write evenhandedly.
[Id. at 562, 494 A.2d 294 (citations omitted).]
Justice Pollock explained: “Insofar as most rights are concerned, a state statute does not violate [federal] substantive due process if the statute reasonably relates to a legitimate legislative purpose and is not arbitrary or discriminatory.” Id. at 563, 494 A.2d 294. Constitutional analysis concerning “fundamental rights” demands “a more exacting ... standard,” while equal protection analysis “traditionally involves different tiers or levels of review.” Id. at 564, 494 A.2d 294.
This Court has generally eschewed a multi-tiered approach to constitutional analysis. Such an analysis weaves “a veil of tiers which shrouds [the] essential issue.” Matthews v. Atlantic City, *64884 N.J. 153, 175, 417 A.2d 1011 (1980)(Clifford, J., dissenting). We simply balance the interests at hand.
The analysis of fundamental lights under the New Jersey Constitution differs from analysis of those rights under the United States Constitution. Right to Choose v. Byrne, 91 N.J. 287, 308-09 [450 A.2d 925] (1982). Starting with our decision in Robinson v. Cahill, 62 N.J. 473, 491-92, 303 A.2d 273, (1973), we began to develop an independent analysis of rights under article 1, paragraph 1. Thereafter, we rejected two-tiered equal protection analysis, Collingswood v. Ringgold, 66 N.J. 350, 370 [331 A.2d 262 (1975)], and employed a balancing test in analyzing claims under the state constitution. Taxpayers Ass’n of Weymouth Township v. Weymouth Township, 80 N.J. 6, 43 [364 A.2d 1016] (1976). In striking the balance, we have considered the nature of the affected right, the extent to which the governmental restriction intrudes upon it, and the public need for the restriction. Right to Choose v. Byrne, supra, 91 N.J. at 308-09 [450 A.2d 925]; Robinson v. Cahill, supra, 62 N.J. at 491-92 [303 A.2d 273].
Our development of an independent analysis follows basically from our recognition that the two constitutions contain different texts. Right to Choose v. Byrne, supra, 91 N.J. at 300-01 [450 A.2d 925]; see also State v. Hunt, 91 N.J. 338, 364 [450 A.2d 952] (1982) (Handler, J., concurring) (identifying textual language as the first of seven criteria for determining when to invoke state constitution as an independent source of fundamental lights). From the face of the two charters, it is apparent that the New Jersey .Constitution is not a mirror image of the United States Constitution. Article 1, paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, which is a grant of fundamental rights, provides:
All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.
Nowhere in that paragraph do the phrases “equal protection” or “due process” appear. Nonetheless, article 1, paragraph 1, like the fourteenth amendment, seeks to protect against injustice and against the unequal treatment of those who should be treated alike. To this extent, article 1 safeguards values like those encompassed by the principles of due process and equal protection.
In the future, as in the past, we shall continue to look to both the federal courts and other state courts for assistance in constitutional analysis. The ultimate responsibility for interpreting the New Jersey Constitution, however, is ours.
[Greenberg, supra, 99 N.J. at 567-68, 494 A.2d 294.]
B.
Applying its flexible balancing test, the Court concluded in Right to Choose v. Byrne, supra, 91 N.J. 287, 450 A.2d 925, that a *649provision in a state’s Medicaid program that restricted Medicaid funds for abortion was invalid under article 1, paragraph 1 of the New Jersey State Constitution. Id. at 293, 450 A.2d 925. This provision, the Court found, protected both the individual’s right to privacy and a guarantee of equal protection. Applying the “balancing test in analyzing equal protection claims under the State Constitution,” the Court concluded that the statute had to be construed to permit funding of medically necessary abortions to poor women. Id. at 309-10, 450 A.2d 925. The Court found that the State’s interest in protecting potential life represented legitimate state interests but that it did not outweigh the superior interest in the life and health of the mother. Id. at 310, 450 A.2d 925. Significantly, however, the Court concluded that the balance came out differently in the case of elective, non-therapeutic abortions, the same type of procedures that are covered by the Parental Notification Act. Ibid. Concerning non-therapeutic abortions, the Court specifically held that no similar right to privacy or equal protection violation outweighed in significance the State’s determination not to fund those abortions. Ibid.
C.
To repeat, the standard requires a balancing of “the nature of the affected right, the extent to which the governmental restriction intrudes upon it, and the public need for the restriction.” Greenberg v. Kimmelman, supra, 99 N.J. at 567, 494 A.2d 294 (citing Right to Choose v. Byrne, supra, 91 N.J. at 308-09, 450 A.2d 925; Robinson v. Cahill, supra, 62 N.J. at 491-92, 303 A.2d 273). Each of those factors was carefully considered by the Legislature when drafting the Act. Concerning the nature of the affected right, we have no doubt of the importance. Concerning the public need for the restriction, the Parental Notification Act expressly enumerates the
compelling and important State interests in protecting minors against their own immaturity, in fostering the family structure and preserving it as a viable social unit, and in protecting the rights of parents to rear their children.
*650The Legislature further finds that minors often lack the ability to make fully informed choices that take into account both immediate and long-range consequences of their actions; that the medical, emotional, and psychological consequences of abortion are serious and of indeterminate duration, particularly when the patient is a minor; that parents ordinarily possess information essential to a physician’s exercise of his best medical judgment concerning them child; and that parents who are aware that their minor daughter has had an abortion may better insure that the minor receives adequate medical attention after her abortion. The Legislature further finds that parental consultation regarding abortion is desirable and in the best interests of the minor.
[N.J.S.A. 9:17A-1.2]
The State interests listed here are supported by this Court’s numerous decisions protecting the rights of minors and preserving the family structure. See In re Grady, 85 N.J. 235, 264, 426 A.2d 467 (1981) (advising child in decisions concerning reproduction); In re Adoption of Children by L.A.S., 134 N.J. 127, 132, 631 A.2d 928 (1993)(describing parents’ fundamental rights); New Jersey Div. of Youth and Family Servs. v. AW., 103 N.J. 591, 599, 512 A.2d 438 (1986)(emphasizing “inviolability of the family unit”); In re Guardianship of J.C., 129 N.J. 1, 7, 608 A.2d 1312 (1992)(stating that the law governing New Jersey’s Division of Youth and Family Services “clearly favors keeping children with their natural parents and resolving care and custody problems within the family”).
Perhaps the strongest public policy support for parental notification can be found in N.J.S.A. 9:17A-5, a law that has been in effect since 1968:
Upon the advice and direction of a treating physician or, if more than one, any one of them, a member of the medical staff of a hospital, public clinic, or physician licensed to practice medicine, may, but shall not be obligated to, inform the spouse, parent, custodian or guardian of any such minor as to the treatment given or needed, and such information may be given to, or withheld from the spouse, parent, custodian or guardian without the consent of the minor patient and even over the express refusal of the minor patient to the providing of such information.
Our final consideration is the extent of the restriction. The law is at once criticized because it does too little and criticized because it does too much. Those opposed to the law argue that it is ineffective and therefore unnecessary. See Planned Parenthood of Central New Jersey v. Farmer, supra, 1999 WL 1138605 at *11 *651(“About ninety-eight percent of the [judicial] bypasses are granted on findings that the minor is mature enough to consent to her own abortion.”) How then can it be persuasively stated that the law will be an undue burden on a young woman’s reproductive rights?
The Court reasons that the Act places an undue burden on minors seeking an abortion in part because of the need for the child to play “truant” and the burdensome necessity to make phone calls to courts and lawyers. Ante at 636, 762 A.2d at 635. Yet, the Act does not require actual presence of the minor in a court room before a Superior Court judge. Procedures, such as video-conferencing, even after-school hours, could be made available to the minor. Presumably, the minor has traveled to a physician and exchanged telephone calls with nurses or medical assistants who have affirmed the minor’s pregnancy without her parents’ involvement. It seems somewhat facile to claim that the judicial bypass creates a greater burden on young women than the effort involved in seeking the abortion itself without her parents’ knowledge.
IV.
On the merits, I disagree with the Court’s equal protection analysis. “Absent infringement of a fundamental right or discrimination against a suspect class, equal protection is not denied if the legislative classification is reasonable and bears a rational relationship to a legitimate government objective.” Rubin v. Glaser, 83 N.J. 299, 309, 416 A.2d 382 (1980); see also Chamber of Commerce of U.S. v. New Jersey, 89 N.J. 131, 158, 445 A.2d 353 (1982)(holding that a court must determine “first whether there is a conceivable legitimate state objective and second whether the classification selected is rationally related to that objective.”)
The majority concedes that we do not deal with a suspect class. “[P]urposeful discrimination is ‘the condition that offends the Constitution.’ ” Personnel Administrator of Massachusetts v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 274, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 2293, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979)(quoting Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Bd. of Ed., 402 *652U.S. 1, 16, 91 S.Ct. 1267, 1276, 28 L.Ed.2d 554 (1979)). “The central purpose of the Equal Protection Clause ... is the prevention of official conduct discriminating on the basis of race.” Washington v. Davis, 426 US. 229, 239, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 2047, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976). The landmark cases in equal protection have always focused upon disparate treatment of the individual. The equal protection clause directs that “all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.” F.S. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415, 40 S.Ct. 560, 562, 64 L.Ed. 989 (1920). But so too, “[t]he Constitution does not require things which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were the same.” Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 2394, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982).
The subject of the notification, pursuant to the Parental Notification Law, is not the person or the child involved but the nature of the medical procedure involved. There is no disguised attempt to single out a class. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886).
Concerning the infringement of fundamental right, the essence of the right — the right to choose the procedure — has not been substantially interfered with.
The question is whether the classification is reasonable and bears a rational relationship to a legitimate governmental objective. In the last analysis, the question comes down to whether it is irrational to distinguish between choosing to carry a child to term and choosing to terminate a pregnancy.
I cannot say that such a classification is irrational. Common experience tells us that in most circumstances most parents will learn when their daughter is carrying a child to term and will be able to counsel the child concerning the proper medical procedure. That is not at all the same as knowing whether a daughter has elected not to carry a child to term. In the District Court opinion in Hodgson, the Court observed that “the Supreme Court has rejected challenges to abortion statutes in other contexts based on different treatment between abortions and other medical deci*653sions. See, e.g., Matheson, supra, 450 U.S. at 412-13, 101 S.Ct. 1164 (parental notice); Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 325, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980) (abortion funding); see also American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists v. Thornburgh, 737 F.2d 283, 296 (3d Cir.1984) (rejecting equal protection challenge to Pennsylvania parental consent/judicial bypass statute).” Hodgson v. Minnesota, 1985 WL 6547, *6 (D.Minn.1985). The Court of Appeals reasoned to the same effect on the basis of the same authorities.
The Hodgson group contends that the district court erred in holding that the statute does not violate the equal protection clause. First, they argue that the statute deprives minors who choose abortion of equal protection of the law' because it singles out abortion as the only pregnancy-related medical procedure requiring third-party notification and because the statute impermissibly discriminates between those minors who are able to notify both their parents and those who cannot. The Hodgson group failed to raise the latter challenge at trial, and therefore we need not address it here. Stafford v. Ford Motor Co., 790 F.2d 702, 706 (8th Cir.1986). As to the first issue, a similar challenge was rejected by the Court in Matheson, 450 U.S. at 412-13, 101 S.Ct. at 1172-73, and the Court has rejected challenges to abortion statutes based on different treatment in other contexts. Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 325, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 2692, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980) (abortion funding); Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464, 469-71, 97 S.Ct. 2376, 2380-81, 53 L.Ed.2d 484 (1977) (abortion funding); Danforth, 428 U.S. at 66-67, 96 S.Ct. at 2839-40 (written consent to abortion). Moreover, as discussed in Part I, supra, a state may regulate a minor’s exercise of her constitutional rights in a manner that would not be permissible in the case of an adult. Akron, 462 U.S. at 427 n. 10, 103 S.Ct. at 2491 n. 10. Based on the interests discussed, states may rationally conclude that the decision to have an abortion poses risks to the physical, mental or emotional well-being of minors which are greater than those associated with other health care services. Bellotti II, 443 U.S. at 640-41, 648-49, 99 S.Ct. at 3046-47, 3050-51 (plurality). “If the pregnant girl elects to carry her child to term, the medical decisions to be made entail few — perhaps none — of the potentially grave emotional and psychological consequences of the decision to abort.” Matheson, 450 U.S. at 412-13, 101 S.Ct. at 1172-73. Thus, we cannot say the district court erred in concluding the statute does not violate the equal protection clause.
[Hodgson v. Minnesota, 853 F.2d 1452, 1466 (8th Cir.1988).]
V.
To sum up, the Legislature has passed a statute asking that before performing an abortion on a minor, either the physician notify a parent or a waiver of that notification requirement be obtained “from a judge of the Superior Court.” N.J.S.A. *6549:17A-1.7a. Except specifically to waive any filing fees, the Legislature left it to the Superior Court to establish the procedures to accomplish the simple goal of providing “[a]ccess to the trial court.” N.J.S.A. 9:17A-1.7f. In what can best be seen as a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 359, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 1319, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985)(Brennan, J., dissenting.), the Administrative Office of the Courts established the procedures for a judicial bypass that the Court now perceives as creating an undue burden on a minor. Rather than to cure any defect in the procedures as the Court has done in the past, Doe v. Poritz, 142 N.J. 1, 662 A.2d 367 (1995), the Court has declared the Act unconstitutional. If there is any fault within the law, the fault lies within ourselves for having made a simple process more cumbersome than it need be.
The State’s Parental Notification Act does not offend due process under the State Constitution because there need be only a minimal governmental restriction on the exercise of the child’s reproductive rights. That minimal interference is well justified by the State’s long-standing commitment to the health and welfare of children and its corresponding obligation to respect the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.
In its most recent pronouncement on the rights of parents, the Supreme Court has stated:
The liberty interest at issue in this case — the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children — is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court. More than 75 years ago, in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 401, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923), we held that the “liberty” protected by the Due Process Clause includes the right of parents to “establish a home and bring up childi-en”. ..
See, e.g„ ... Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 232, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) (“The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of then- children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition”); ... In light of this extensive precedent, it cannot now be doubted that the Due Process Clause of the Four*655teenth Amendment protects the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of them children.
[Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, —, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (U.S.Wash.2000).]
The Act does not offend equal protection requirements because it involves a reasonable classification of different medical procedures. It does not create a suspect class of women. In Right to Choose v. Byrne, supra, Justice Pollock explained that “the State may pursue its interest in potential life by excluding [non-therapeutic] abortions from the Medicaid program.” 91 N.J. at 309, 450 A.2d 925. For purposes of equal protection analysis there is a vast difference between the minor’s decision to abort her pregnancy, which this Court has already concluded implicates a “potential life” and her decision to carry to term.
I would affirm the judgment of the Chancery Division upholding the constitutionality of the Act. I would require the Administrative Office of the Courts to modify the procedures currently in place to minimize any unnecessary burdens in the constitutionally required bypass procedure.
Justice VERNIERO joins in this opinion.