The Supreme Court will hear argument next week (November 30) in an

important case about family law. The case comes from New Hampshire, where

Planned Parenthood challenged a law requiring that one parent of an

unemancipated minor girl be notified before she has surgery performed upon

her. What, you might wonder, is the case doing in the Supreme

Court? Well, even though such statutes are as common as fruit flies in the

tropics, and even though their constitutionality is, as a general matter,

beyond any doubt, this case is special. It involves the abortion

distortion of our law. So, even though an unemancipated minor girl often

cannot use a tanning bed or get her ears pierced without parental consent,

the question next week is whether the Constitution requires a state to

permit the same girl to claim a “health” exception to a one-parent notice

requirement before getting an abortion.

The federal appeals court in Boston held in favor of Planned Parenthood.

Robert George and I filed a Supreme Court Brief on behalf of Focus on the

Family and the Family Research Council, in opposition to the First Circuit

ruling. The Brief may be found here.