WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court steered clear of a major ruling on abortion Wednesday, instead giving New Hampshire a chance to save its parental notification law.
Justices, in a rare unanimous abortion ruling, agreed that the New Hampshire law could make it too hard for some ill minors to get an abortion, but at the same time they were hesitant about stepping in to fix the statute. They told a lower court to reconsider whether the entire law is unconstitutional.
“Making distinctions in a murky constitutional context, or where line-drawing is inherently complex, may call for a ‘far more serious invasion of the legislative domain’ than we ought to undertake,” retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the court.
The justices found consensus on narrow grounds, that a lower court went too far by permanently blocking the law that requires a parent to be told before a daughter ends her pregnancy.
Civil rights groups predicted that the appeals court would again strike down the law.
“It tells politicians that they must include protections for women’s health and safety when they pass abortion laws,” said Jennifer Dalven, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.
O’Connor, who supports Roe, made clear that the court was not going to break new ground in what may be her final days on the bench. “We do not revisit our abortion precedents today,” she wrote in the opening of the brief opinion.
The case returns to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which had ruled that the law was unconstitutional. The statute requires that a parent be informed 48 hours before a minor child has an abortion but makes no exception for a medical emergency that threatens the youth’s health.
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