Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health (1989)
- Docket
- 88-805
- Decided
- 1989-01-01
Summary
Question: Do the judicial bypass requirements, the physician notification element, and the burden of proof mandated by the parental notification bill violate a minor’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights? Conclusion: No. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the opinion for the 6-3 majority in which the Court held that the bill did not violate a minor’s right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment because it satisfied the four factors used to determine the constitutionality of this type of consent statutes. Those four factors are whether the minor was allowed to show that she was mature enough to make the abortion decision without her parents’ help, whether she was allowed to show that the abortion is in her best interest, whether the judicial bypass procedure took reasonable measures to ensure the minor’s anonymity, and whether the statute set reasonable time limits for judicial action. The Court ruled that requiring a minor to prove maturity by clear and convincing evidence is a fair evidentiary burden and that the requirement that the treating physician performs the notification is not an undue burden on the doctor or the minor. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a concurring opinion in which he highlighted the importance of leaving abortion statutes such as this one to be decided by the majority-influenced state legislatures instead of by the “lawyerly dissection” of judicial precedent. Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the judicial bypass procedure created a system that was a “tortious maze” and lacked the sensitivity required when dealing with such an intimate decision. Justice Blackmun also argued that the state lacked a sufficiently significant interest to interfere with the minor’s right to make this decision. Justice Thurgood Marshall and Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. joined in the dissent.