Court Opinion

ID: 9427706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:21:37.17383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:09.248692
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stevens,
with whom Mr. Justice Brennan, Mr. Justice Marshall, and Mr. Justice Blackmun join, concurring in the judgment.
In Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, the Court held that a woman’s right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy is *653entitled to constitutional protection. In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, 72-75, the Court held that a pregnant minor’s right to make the abortion decision may not be conditioned on the consent of one parent. I am persuaded that these decisions require affirmance of the District Court’s holding that the Massachusetts statute is unconstitutional.
The Massachusetts statute is, on its face, simple and straightforward. It provides that every woman under 18 who has not married must secure the consent of both her parents before receiving an abortion. “If one or both of the mother’s parents refuse such consent, consent may be obtained by order of a judge of the superior court for good cause shown.” Mass. Gen. Laws Ann., ch. 112, § 12S (West Supp. 1979).
Whatever confusion or uncertainty might have existed as to how this statute was to operate, see Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U. S. 132, has been eliminated by the authoritative construction of its provisions by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. See Baird v. Attorney General, 371 Mass. 741, 360 N. E. 2d 288 (1977). The statute was construed to require that every minor who wishes an abortion must first seek the consent of both parents, unless a parent is not available or unless the need for the abortion constitutes “ ‘an emergency requiring immediate action.’ ” Id., at 750, 360 N. E. 2d, at 294. Both parents, so long as they are available., must also receive notice of judicial proceedings brought under the statute by the minor. In those proceedings, the task of the judge is to determine whether the best interests of the minor will be served by an abortion. The decision is his to make, even if he finds “that the minor is capable of making, and has made, an informed and reasonable decision to have an abortion.” Id., at 748, 360 N. E. 2d, at 293. Thus, no minor in Massachusetts, no matter how mature and capable of informed decisionmaking, may receive an abortion without the consent *654of either both her parents or a superior court judge. In every instance, the minor’s decision to secure an abortion is subject to an absolute third-party veto.1
In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, supra, this Court invalidated statutory provisions requiring the consent of the husband of a married woman and of one parent of a pregnant minor to an abortion. As to the spousal consent, the Court concluded that “we cannot hold that the State has the constitutional authority to give the spouse unilaterally the ability to prohibit the wife from terminating her pregnancy, when the State itself lacks that right.” 428 U. S., at 70. And as to the parental consent, the Court held that “[j]ust as with the requirement of consent from the spouse, so here, the State does not have the constitutional authority to give a third party an absolute, and possibly arbitrary, veto over the decision of the physician and his patient to terminate the patient’s pregnancy, regardless of the reason for withholding the consent.” Id., at 74. These holdings, I think, equally apply to the Massachusetts statute. The differences between the two statutes are few. Unlike the Missouri statute, Massachusetts requires the consent of both of the woman’s parents. It does, of course, provide an alternative in the form of a suit initiated by the woman in superior court. But in that proceeding, the judge is afforded an absolute veto over the minor’s decisions, based on his judgment of her best interests. In Massachusetts, then, as in Missouri, the State has imposed an “absolute limitation on the minor’s right to obtain an abortion,” id., at 90 (Stewart, J., concurring), applicable to every pregnant minor in the State who has not married.
*655The provision of an absolute veto to a judge — or, potentially, to an appointed administrator 2 — is to me particularly troubling. The constitutional right to make the abortion decision affords protection to both of the privacy interests recognized in this Court’s cases: “One is the individual interest in avoiding disclosure of personal matters, and another is the interest in independence in making certain kinds of important decisions.” Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 599-600 (footnotes omitted). It is inherent in the right to make the abortion decision that the right may be exercised without public scrutiny and in defiance of the contrary opinion of the sovereign or other third parties. In Massachusetts, however, every minor who cannot secure the consent of both her parents — which under Danforth cannot be an absolute prerequisite to an abortion — is required to secure the consent of the sovereign. As a practical matter, I would suppose that the need to commence judicial proceedings in order to obtain a legal abortion would impose a burden at least as great as, and probably greater than, that imposed on the minor child by the need to obtain the consent of a parent.3 Moreover, once this burden is met, the only standard provided for the judge’s decision is the best interest of the minor. That standard provides little real guidance to the judge, and his decision must necessarily reflect personal and societal values and mores whose enforcement upon the minor — particularly when contrary to her own informed and reasonable decision — is fundamentally at odds *656with privacy interests underlying the constitutional protection afforded to her decision.
In short, it seems ¿5* me that this litigation is governed by Danforth; to the extent this statute differs from that in Dan-forth, it is potentially even more restrictive of the constitutional right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. Because the statute has been once authoritatively construed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and because it is clear that the statute as written and construed is not constitutional, I agree with Mr. Justice Powell that the District Court's judgment should be affirmed. Because his opinion goes further, however, and addresses the constitutionality of an abortion statute that Massachusetts has not enacted, I decline to join his opinion.4

 By affording such a veto, the Massachusetts statute does far more than simply provide for notice to the parents. See post, at 657 (White, J., dissenting). Neither Danforth nor this case determines the constitutionality of a statute which does no more than require notice to the parents, without affording them or any other third party an absolute veto.

 See ante, at 643 n. 22.

 A minor may secure the assistance of counsel in filing and prosecuting her suit, but that is not guaranteed. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in response to the question whether a minor, upon a showing of indigency, may have court-appointed counsel, “construefd] the statutes of the Commonwealth to authorize the appointment of counsel or a guardian ad litem for an indigent minor at public expense, if necessary, if the judge, in his discretion, concludes that the best interests of the minor would be served by such an appointment.” Baird v. Attorney General, 371 Mass. 741, 764, 360 N. E. 2d 288, 301 (1977) (emphasis added).

 Until and unless Massachusetts or another State enacts a less restrictive statutory scheme, this Court has no occasion to render an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of such a scheme. A real statute — rather than a mere outline of a possible statute — and a real case or controversy may well present questions that appear quite different from the hypothetical questions MR. Justice Powell has elected to address. Indeed, there is a certain irony in his suggestion that a statute that is intended to vindicate “the special interest of the State in encouraging an unmarried pregnant minor to seek the advice of her parents in making the important decision whether or not to bear a child,” see ante, at 639, need not require notice to the parents of the minor’s intended decision. That irony makes me wonder whether any legislature concerned with parental consultation would, in the absence of today’s advisory opinion, have enacted a statute comparable to the one my Brethren have discussed.