HELENA, Mont.- Montana’s Supreme Court declared Wednesday that adolescents do not need their parent’s permission to get an abortion in the state, upholding a lower court decision that determined the parental consent legislation violated the state constitution’s privacy provision.
“We conclude that minors, like adults, have a fundamental right to privacy, which includes procreative autonomy and making medical decisions affecting his or her bodily integrity and health in partnership with a chosen health care provider free from governmental interest,” the court’s unanimous ruling stated.
The decision comes as a Montana ballot issue to ask voters if they want to safeguard the right to a pre-viability abortion in the state constitution is set to appear in November. County officials have verified enough signatures to qualify the issue for the ballot, according to advocates. The Secretary of State’s Office must certify the general election ballots by August 22.
The parental consent law was passed by the Legislature in 2013, but it was never put into force due to an injunction agreed upon by the attorney general at the time. A lengthy series of judicial substitutes, recusals, and retirements delayed the decision until last year.
In February 2023, a state judge declared that the statute violated the constitution, citing a 1999 Montana Supreme Court decision that said that the right to privacy includes the right to a pre-viability abortion by the patient’s preferred practitioner.
The Supreme Court’s ruling “affirms the right to privacy, and we are pleased that the Court upheld the fundamental rights of Montanans today,” said Martha Fuller, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, which filed the case.
The state had argued that the law was necessary to protect minors from sexual victimization, to protect their psychological and physical well-being by ensuring they had parents who could monitor post-abortion complications, to protect minors from ill-informed decisions, and to protect parental rights to direct their children’s care, custody, and control.
The judges disagreed, pointing out that the state “imposes no corresponding limitation on a minor who seeks medical or surgical care otherwise related to her pregnancy or child.”
Republican Governor Greg Gianforte expressed “concern and disappointment” with the verdict, which stated that parents do not have a fundamental right to control their young daughters’ medical care.
The Guttmacher Institute, a policy group that promotes sexual and reproductive health care rights, reports that 36 states mandate parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion. Some states mandate parental notice, while others need consent.