JURIST - Paper Chase: Idaho Senate committee approves parental consent for abortions

[JURIST] An Idaho State Senate [official website] committee Monday passed a bill requiring written parental consent for minors to get abortions [JURIST news archive]. In a 7-2 vote, the State Affairs Committee approved Senate Bill No. 1082 [text], which

amends, repeals and adds to existing law relating to abortion to revise a public records exemption; provide[s] for criminal act state of mind; provide[s] procedures for obtaining consent for abortions for minors; provide[s] for reporting by courts; and provide[s] statistical records.

The bill provides judge-approved exceptions for incest, abuse, or threats to the mother's health, although opponents say that hearings could lead to dangerous bureaucratic delays. The bill's sponsor, Sen. Russ Fulcher [official website], said that objections to earlier versions of the bill, including a requirement that minor recipients of medical-emergency abortions must inform a parent after the procedure, were removed. The bill will now go to the entire Senate. AP has more.

In 2004 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Idaho's parental consent law [JURIST report] in Planned Parenthood of Idaho v. Wasden [opinion, PDF] on the grounds that it was unconstitutional because the medical necessity exception in the law was too narrow. The following year, the US Supreme Court declined to hear [JURIST report] the state's appeal challenging the decision. Currently only six states and the District of Columbia [NCSL backgrounder] do not require parental notification before a minor receives an abortion.

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