Montana Supreme Court rules minors don’t need parental permission for abortion

https://apnews.com/article/montana-abortion-parental-consent-980e974b46721f6fcdefd9ac85a2a996?utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

32 Comments

  1. JUSTICE_SALTIE on

    I almost always come down on the side of parental decision-making for their minor children, because they have a very serious legal obligation to care for them.

    This is an easy peasy exception in my book.

  2. Wonderful-Variation on

    If you don’t make it possible for teenagers to get abortions, you end up with incidents where they hide their pregnancies and end up throwing the baby in a dumpster.

  3. Invisible_Mikey on

    It should NEVER be government’s job to dictate these kinds of decisions. Or ANY medical decision. They aren’t qualified above doctors and their patients to make them. I guarantee doctors do not make these kinds of formulaic recommendations. Consents must be individual, to fit individual needs and situations.

  4. Damn, if a minor needs an abortion she shouldn’t need anybody’s permission except the supervising doctor’s.

    Good call, Montana.

  5. throwawaylol666666 on

    I had an abortion at 16 in the mid-90s in liberal af Massachusetts. I don’t know if the parental notification law is still in effect there (hopefully not), but it was at that time. In order to do it without involving my parents, I had to get something called a judicial bypass. The result of this was that I wound up having the abortion later than I would have without needing it.

    Long story short – this is a win for the teens of Montana.

  6. notcaffeinefree on

    Montana has an explicitly right to privacy in their constitution. That’s what this was decided on.

  7. showme_yourdogs on

    Having lived in Montana, I an surprised as shit the court ruled this way. I guess its a good thing the body slamming governor doesn’t choose the justices there like our SCOTUS.

  8. Montana has always been a state that truly believes in personal freedom which is why I’m not as worried about Tester’s senate race.

  9. I am someone who had to take care of my friend in highschool who unfortunately got pregnant and had to have an abortion and I’m very glad laws like this exist. Her parents were abusive physically and mentally, and she was very naive in relationships and trusted the wrong boy. Her parents would have made her keep the child and she would have not been able to go to university and eventually leave her terrible home life. Laws like this allowed her to escape because without it she would have been trapped with abusive parents and possibly the child she would have been forced to have trapped as well.

  10. Makes sense since minors are emancipated as soon as they become pregnant. (at least in Michigan)

  11. Montana!? Montana figured it out!? Oh this is a new high. Yeah, this one’s gonna be great.

  12. Imagine if the “originalists” sitting on the federal Supreme Court actually followed the constitution?

    Example. I get it doesn’t explicitly say abortion is a right but it also does not say anything about healthcare being a state issue. It does though offer certain freedoms that offer credence to federal laws out ranking state rights. It also enshrines laws to provide commonality amongst the states.

    No way does up to 50 different laws on the same topic create such. Using the jurisdictional (commonality) argument, with it being an “elective” type need for the vast majority of them it would also fall under the commerce clause. As it would limit mobility amongst its members providing potentially like minded services.

  13. hardtobeuniqueuser on

    Montana has a little over a million people in roughly the same area that Japan has 120 million people. A lot of room for surprises.  

  14. This is how we do things in Canada. There is no age restriction nor parental consent needed for abortions. Why? Because it only serves to make things more dangerous for the minor. You have cases where if the parents find out, that minor gets disowned and ends up homeless. Or worse, the reason the minor is pregnant in the first place is due to SA from the parent. Barriers to abortion always end up doing more harm than good.

  15. Advanced_Fee_5187 on

    Thank god.
    We need to protect our teen.

    Hopefully soon we will have federal protections.

    We will not go back.

    It’s not a woman’s job and duty to have children and raise them.

    We will not go back.

    I will not live in a country that wishes to see women without rights.

  16. It makes sense. In some cases, it’s about adult decision making. If they were old enough to say yes to sex, then we must assume they are also old enough to say no to parenthood. Sex does not equal parent. There’s many more reasons to have sex other than wanting to become a parent.

    PREGNANCY AS PUNISMENT is abhorrent.

  17. how hard is it to understand that decisions around something as impactful as a pregnancy should be left up to the person who is in fact pregnant