Montana House Approves Bill Requiring Parental Notification for Minors Seeking Abortion

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 24 Feb 2005 - 14:00 PDT

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The Montana House on Monday preliminarily approved 53-47 a bill... (HB 730) that would require parental notification for minors seeking abortion, the AP/Billings Gazette reports. The measure is an effort to "revive" a state parental notification law, which the Montana Department of Justice in the late 1990s stopped enforcing after the Montana Supreme Court issued a ruling nullifying the law's restrictions, according to the AP/Gazette. The current bill would "revam[p]" the system by which minors seeking abortion can gain judicial bypass to avoid parental notification for the procedure, the AP/Gazette reports. According to state Rep. Michael Lange (R), the measure would relax the current law's requirements for judicial bypass. Currently, a judge must find "clear and convincing evidence" that a minor is "mature enough" to undergo abortion. The new measure would require a judge only find that a minor seeking abortion is "competent," according to the AP/Gazette. "It doesn't try to do some super-secret change," Lange said, adding, "It just tries to make the law constitutional." However, state Rep. Gail Gutsche (D) said that the measure fails to overcome the state Supreme Court ruling, adding that the law would still impose a restriction violating the privacy right guaranteed by the state constitution (Anez, AP/Billings Gazette, 2/21).

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