Court Opinion

ID: 9432124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:34:15.489969+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:32.574677
License: Public Domain

Justice White
dissented from the Court’s judgment that the Massachusetts statute was unconstitutional. In his view no bypass was necessary, so it must follow that a two-parent consent statute with an adequate bypass procedure would have been valid. See id., at 656-657. In sum, five Members of the Court in Bellotti II found, either by express statement or by implication, that it was permissible under the Constitution for a State to require the consent of two parents, as long as it provides a consent substitute in the form of an adequate judicial bypass procedure.
I cannot accept Justice Stevens’ suggestion today that Justice Powell, in announcing these rules, did not “consider” the fact that he was doing so in the context of a two-parent consent requirement, see ante, at 455-456. The statute was explicit in its command that both parents consent to the abortion. See 443 U. S., at 625-626. Justice Powell indicated that he was aware of this fact, see id., at 630, and n. 10, and the dissent drew a specific contrast between the two-parent consent requirement then before the Court and the one-parent consent requirement before the Court in Dan-forth, see 443 U. S., at 656-657 (opinion of White, J.); see also id., at 653 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Aware of all of these circumstances, Justice Powell stated the controlling principles with specific reference to laws requiring the consent of “one or both” parents. Id., at 643. Justice Powell’s considered reasoning, coupled with the dissenting views of Justice White, was intended to set forth the dispositive principles of law for deciding the constitutionality of parental consent laws. The Court has relied upon these principles in deciding the constitutionality of laws requiring notice or the consent of one parent, see Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U. S., at 439-442 (consent); Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, post, at 511-514 (notice). As Bellotti II dealt with the far more de*500manding requirement of two-parent consent, and approved of such a requirement when coupled with a judicial bypass alternative, I must conclude that these same principles validate a two-parent notice requirement when coupled with a judicial bypass alternative.
A second precedent that compels the conclusion that a two-parent notice law with a judicial bypass alternative is constitutional is our decision in Matheson. There we held that a two-parent notice statute without a bypass was constitutional as applied to immature minors whose best interests would be served by notice. Like the statute before the Court in Matheson, the Minnesota statute, as amended by subdivision 6, requires a physician to notify the parents of those immature minors whose best interest will be served by the communication.
If a two-parent notification law may be constitutional as applied to immature minors whose best interests are served by the law, but not as applied to minors who are mature or whose best interests are' not so served, a judicial bypass is an expeditious and efficient means by which to separate the applications of the law which are constitutional from those which are not. Justice Stevens’ characterization of the judicial bypass procedure discussed in our past cases as a necessary “exception” to a “reasonable general rule,” such as a one-parent consent requirement, see ante, at 456, 457, is far off the mark. If a judicial bypass is mandated by the Constitution at all, it must be because a general consent rule is unreasonable in at least some of its applications, and the bypass is necessary to save the statute. See, e. g., Bellotti II, supra, at 643 (opinion of Powell, J.); Matheson, 450 U. S., at 420 (Powell, J., concurring). No reason can be given for refusing to apply a similar analysis to the less demanding case of a notice statute. It follows that a similar result should obtain: A law that requires notice to one or both parents is constitutional with a bypass. I thus concur in that portion of the judgment announced, but not agreed with, by Justice Ste-*501VENS which affirms the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that §144.343(6) is constitutional.
V
In this case, the Court rejects a legislature’s judgment that parents should at least be aware of their daughter’s intention to seek an abortion, even if the State does not empower the parents to control the child’s decision. That judgment is rejected although it rests upon a tradition of a parental role in the care and upbringing of children that is as old as civilization itself. Our precedents do not permit this result.
It is true that for all too many young women the prospect of two parents, perhaps even one parent, sustaining her with support that is compassionate and committed is an illusion. Statistics on drug and alcohol abuse by parents and documentations of child neglect and mistreatment are but fragments of the evidence showing the tragic reality that becomes day-to-day life for thousands of minors. But the Court errs in serious degree when it commands its own solution to the cruel consequences of individual misconduct, parental failure, and social ills. The legislative authority is entitled to attempt to meet these wrongs by taking reasonable measures to recognize and promote the primacy of the family tie, a concept which this Court now seems intent on declaring a constitutional irrelevance.