Justices Lift Stay on Girl’s Abortion : Florida Orders Expedited Review of 15-Year-Old’s Petition

The Supreme Court cleared the way today for a 15-year-old Florida girl--and any other minor in the state--to obtain an abortion without the consent of her parents or a judge.

The justices, without comment or recorded dissent, lifted an order Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had issued two days earlier blocking a Lake County girl, identified only as T.W., from having an abortion.

The court’s action makes unenforceable, at least until September, a Florida law requiring some girls to get permission from their parents or a state judge before having an abortion.

Florida officials, reacting to the high court’s order, asked the state Supreme Court today to expedite its planned review of T.W.’s case, or to allow the state law to be enforced until the Florida court’s previously scheduled September review of the case.

Kennedy’s order had sparked widespread speculation about his views on abortion.

He is considered to hold a pivotal vote in a Missouri case asking the justices to reverse or curtail the court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion. A decision in that case is expected by late June.

The Florida case began when T.W., who is 12 weeks pregnant, sought a judge’s permission earlier this month for an abortion. She said she feared physical and emotional abuse if she told her parents.

The judge struck down as unconstitutional a parental-consent law enacted in February, and his ruling was upheld by a state appeals court.

In the past, the nation’s highest court has approved some parental-consent or parental-notification laws, as long as an unwed girl under 18 and still dependent on her parents had the alternative of getting a judge’s permission for the operation. About two dozen states have such laws.

But the appeals court said the Florida law was too vague and could result in arbitrary denials of permission by judges.

The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to review T.W.’s case in the fall but refused to let the parental-consent law be enforced until then.

A lawyer who was appointed by the judge in T.W.’s case to represent the fetus then sought help from Kennedy, who handles emergency matters from Florida for the high court.

“Minors in Florida are free, without constraint of any kind, to obtain an abortion,” lawyer Richard Boylston told Kennedy. “In the absence of a stay, the unborn child of T.W., a minor, and hundreds of other unborn children will be aborted pending a decision by the Florida Supreme Court.”