Arizona Loses Abortion-Consent Appeal

Arizona’s parental consent law is unconstitutional because it lacks a time limit for a judge to decide on an abortion for a minor who cannot consult her parents, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s rejection of the 1996 law, which has never been enforced.

An antiabortion lawyer denounced the ruling and said he hoped the state would appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Since minors need parental consent for other types of operations, “it’s strictly politics when they make a distinction that this particular surgical procedure, abortion, doesn’t need parental consent,” said Edmund D. Kahn, lawyer for Arizona Right to Life. The organization submitted written arguments but is not a party to the case.

The distinction he cited was first made by the Supreme Court, which has upheld parental consent laws for abortion only with conditions that do not apply to other operations.

Arizona Atty. Gen. Janet Napolitano’s office will study the ruling and decisions from other courts before deciding whether to appeal further, said Chief Deputy Atty. Gen. Tim Delaney. “We thought we had a good case,” he said.

John Iurino, lawyer for Planned Parenthood of Southern Arizona, which sued to overturn the law, said he was pleased.

The 1996 law was a revised version of a 1989 statute that was also struck down by federal courts.

It would require an unmarried female under age 18 to obtain consent from a parent for an abortion. As an alternative, she could try to persuade a judge, in a confidential proceeding, that an abortion without parental consent was in her best interest.

A state report for 1995 said 2,294 abortions were performed in Arizona on patients between 10 and 19, compared with 11,000 live births.

The Supreme Court has upheld state parental consent laws that give girls who cannot consult their parents the option of a speedy judicial review. The Arizona law would require the judge to rule “promptly and without delay” and give the case priority over others, but set no specific time limits.

The appeals court, in a 3-0 ruling, agreed with U.S. District Judge Alfredo Marquez that the law’s judicial timetable was inadequate.

Under Supreme Court standards, the judge’s review “must be performed within specific, determinate time limits,” said the opinion by Judge A. Wallace Tashima. Without such limits, he said, a judge “could delay the bypass procedure for a sufficient period to render it practically unavailable.”