Abortion and Minors: Overview

Introduction

Although pregnant people younger than eighteen account for a relatively small share of all the abortions performed every year in the United States, their legal status as minors has made them a particular focal point in reproductive policy debates. Tracking the exact rates of abortion among minors is difficult, as the main source for abortion statistics is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which breaks the statistics down according to age in five-year increments; thus, CDC statistics record abortions for those younger than fifteen, age fifteen through nineteen, age twenty through twenty-four, and so on. According to the 2024 report, for 2022, the CDC recorded 613,383 reported legal induced abortions in the United States; of these, abortions among adolescents nineteen years old and younger accounted for 8.5 percent of the total.

One of the major issues surrounding minors and abortion is laws requiring parental notification and/or consent. According to the Guttmacher Institute, by September 2023, thirty-six states had adopted laws requiring minors seeking an abortion to obtain prior consent from, or to notify one or both, parents. Twenty-one states required parental consent for a minor to receive an abortion, and three of these required both parents' consent. Ten states required only parental notification, and one of these required that both parents be notified. Thirty-five of these state laws also contain the so-called judicial bypass option, by which a pregnant minor can petition a judge, bypassing their parents, for permission to consent on their own to an abortion.

Advocates argue that notification laws enhance family communication and promote the health and best interests of minors. They say that most adolescents and teenagers are unprepared to deal with the physical and psychological effects of abortion and need the emotional and material support of their parents. They also argue that parents' responsibilities to oversee their children's health outweigh adolescents' and teens' right to privacy. Moreover, many advocates believe that notification and consent requirements have reduced the numbers of abortions as well as pregnancies among minors. Confidential access to abortion services, advocates claim, makes minors more likely to engage in sexual activities.

Opponents of notification laws counter that there is little clinical evidence that parental notification decreases the likelihood of adolescent and teen sexual behavior. Many believe that notification and consent requirements have produced an increase in the number of adolescents and teens delaying abortions until the later stages of pregnancy. Such opponents claim that these delays occur because adolescents and teens are paralyzed by fear of parental reaction, or because they deliberately wait until their eighteenth birthdays, which mark the age of consent for an abortion, according to most state laws. At the same time, it is argued that those who are able to pursue judicial bypass action often have an abortion, even if granted, dangerously delayed due to the extent of the process.

Opponents also point out that more than half of pregnant adolescents and teens voluntarily involve their parents in the decision to choose, or not choose, an abortion. They contend, however, that notification laws ignore the reality that some minors, including those pregnant as a result of rape, or incest, minors trapped in abusive homes, or struggling to survive as runaways, are unwilling or unable to communicate with their parents for compelling reasons. And minors who are too intimidated to approach their own parents, critics argue, are highly unlikely to have the resources to petition a judge. These same minors, they suggest, are also more likely to place their lives and health at risk by attempting illicit or self-induced abortions.

Understanding the Discussion

Age of consent: The age at which, according to the law, persons are bound by their words and acts. State laws can vary in dictating the ages at which a person acquires the legal capacity to consent, for example, to get married, choose a guardian, conclude a contract, or undergo an abortion.

Judicial bypass: An alternative means of obtaining permission to consent to an abortion for a minor living in a state requiring parental notification or consent; a minor can petition a judge to demonstrate that either they are mature and informed enough to make their own abortion decision, or that the abortion would be in their best interest.

Minor: A person who has not attained the age fixed for entering into a legal contract or for making themselves legally liable for their own actions.

Parental consent law: A law requiring, before an abortion is performed on a minor, the consent of one or both parents of that minor, or proceedings in a state court waiving such a requirement.

Parental notification law: The legal requirement that one or more parents of a pregnant minor be notified before the minor may have an abortion.

Self-induced abortion: An abortion that a pregnant person causes themselves to undergo without licensed medical supervision.

History

In the 1979 case of Bellotti v. Baird, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in a challenge to Massachusetts state law, that minors must be afforded the opportunity to approach a court for authorization to have an abortion, a procedure that can be surgical or medicinally induced, without first seeking the consent of their parents. The Court also ruled that such alternative proceedings must be carried out in a confidential and timely manner.

In the 1990 case of Hodgson v. Minnesota, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a Minnesota state law requiring a minor to notify not one, but both biological parents before having an abortion. The law made no exception for parents who are divorced, not married to each other, or unknown to their daughters.

In 1992, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the right to abortion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Meanwhile, the Court affirmed states' rights to enact restrictions, such as parental consent or notification laws for minors, as long as these restrictions do not create an "undue burden". To prevent undue burden, the Court's ruling specifically stipulated that state laws requiring parental involvement must provide minors with the alternative of seeking a court order to authorize an abortion.

In 1998, and again in 1999, the House of Representatives passed the Child Custody Protection Act (CCPA). The bill would make it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines to obtain abortion services without fulfilling the parental consent or notification requirements of their home state. Under a threat of veto from then-president Bill Clinton, the Senate never took up the measure. The bill was reintroduced in 2003, but again failed to advance through both chambers of Congress.

In 2005, the House of Representatives passed the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). The Senate refused to consider CIANA and instead passed, in 2006, the Child Custody Protection Act, which makes it a federal crime to transport a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion with the intent of circumventing the parental involvement law of the minor's home state. The prohibition does not apply when the abortion is necessary to save the minor's life. The measure prevents the abridgement of the right of a parent secured under state law. CIANA was repeatedly reintroduced in subsequent years.

In the 2006 case of Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, the Supreme Court struck down a New Hampshire law that required doctors to delay a teenager's abortion until forty-eight hours after parental notification. Because the law lacked a medical emergency exception, the court ruled that the law must be blocked in those cases where a lack of prompt action could jeopardize a pregnant teen's health.

Sustained debates around abortion issues, particularly in the case of minors, such as body autonomy and rights, competency, parental rights, family communication, and physical as well as emotional health persisted throughout the 2010s as shifts in political and judicial landscapes kept the legality and morality of abortion in general in perpetual challenge. In the state of Illinois, the passage in the 1990s of a parental notification law for minors seeking an abortion led to prolonged judicial conflict, and it was ultimately not until 2013 that the law went into effect.

In March 2011, the Ohio House of Representatives had heard "testimony" from two fetuses as part of their consideration of the so-called heartbeat bill, which would ban abortions of pregnancies in which a heartbeat can be heard. Legislators heard the amplified heartbeat of two fetuses. Subsequently, a number of states passed similar heartbeat bills—though typically judicially challenged and at some points at least temporarily barred—banning abortions after six weeks, in anticipation of returning the issue to a Supreme Court that had shifted strongly to the right after 2018. Republicans, who largely oppose abortion on conservative grounds and had also gained greater political power at both the state and federal levels by the end of the 2010s, often held leadership positions in states that were part of the rise in restrictive abortion laws being passed or introduced around that time.

Abortion and Minors Today

In the 2020s, abortion remained a highly politicized issue, especially concerning minors. The Supreme Court's conservative shift, solidified by Amy Coney Barrett's appointment in late 2020, intensified debates around abortion rights.

A particularly controversial event occurred when the Supreme Court did not render a decision about the constitutionality of a 2021 Texas law banning abortions after six weeks. Some continued to argue that state parental notification mandates for minors were necessary protective measures to foster supportive communication, and that abortion rates among minors had decreased in states that had such mandates. At the same time, by 2021 abortion opponents were continuing to advocate against parental notification laws that they considered to be harmful, including in the states of Illinois and Massachusetts, the latter of which passed a new bill in late 2020 that lowered the age of obtaining an abortion without parental consent from eighteen to sixteen.

The Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022 allowed states to set their own abortion laws, leading to significant restrictions in many states. Dobbs sparked widespread controversy and highlighted the challenges minors face in accessing abortion services, particularly due to parental consent laws and the need to travel out of state for care. Many stressed that pregnant individuals' burdens for accessing abortions were quickly exacerbated, with the increased requirement to travel to a different state causing activists to express particular concern over minors' especially limited capabilities to pursue such options. By 2023, thirty-six states required prior parental involvement in a minor's decision to have an abortion.

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

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