ALABAMA HIGH COURT UPHOLDS JUDGE WHO DENIED ABORTION TO TEEN

By Dave Andrusko

The Alabama Supreme Court has upheld the July 20 decision of a lower court judge who had ruled that "a pregnant teenager and her godmother answered questions so perfunctorily and showed so little emotion that he refused to allow her to get an abortion without parental consent," according to the Associated Press (AP).

Under requirements handed down by the United States Supreme Court, protective laws which establish that parents be notified when a minor daughter is contemplating an abortion must have a " judicial bypass." Under this procedure, the minor goes to a court to establish either that the abortion is in her "best interest" or that she is "mature" enough to make the decision on her own.

Ordinarily, such requests are rubber stamped. Not so in this case. According to the AP, the trial judge who denied the waiver for the 17-year-old girl wrote that the "'testimony of the minor and her godmother appeared to be rehearsed and that neither of the two individuals showed any emotion concerning the very serious request that they were making in this proceeding.... This court did not believe the minor or her godmother,' who is identified as a woman with children."

Chief Justice Roy Moore and Justices Harold See, Champ Lyons, Jean Brown, and Lyn Stuart agreed. The majority said the lower court's conclusions, "although subjective, were based on its having personally viewed the witnesses as they testified and cannot be questioned on appeal, where we have before us only a cold, printed record."

According to press accounts, the girl said that she and the child's father, who was preparing for college, agreed they were not "ready for a child, financially or otherwise." But why not adoption?

According the AP, she said she felt "that would be putting her responsibility on others and because an adoption would be more emotionally stressful than an abortion."

The dissenting justices attributed the decision to "religious opposition" that is "pervasive and intransigent" in Alabama.

The AP further reported that her attorneys attacked the trial judge's findings about her demeanor and credibility. They maintained that they were "nothing more than bare assertions that lack support in the record and bear no logical connection to the maturity, level of knowledge or best interest (of the minor)."

But Justices Moore, See, Lyons, Brown, and Stuart ruled that there was no evidence to indicate that the trial judge "has a hidden agenda" about abortion that would have affected the outcome.

"Unless you believe that abortions are a good thing, the fact that parental involvement lowers the number of abortions minors obtain ought to be welcomed," said Mary Spaudling Balch, NRLC director of state legislation. "And this life-affirming outcome is exactly what you expect unless you believe most parents are ogres. They aren't, and in any event, laws always provide for exceptions if needed."

Asked if the Alabama Supreme Court's affirmation of the trial court judge's decision might alter the equation, Balch said no. Most teens who want toor who are encouraged to by abortion clinicswill be able to keep their parents in the dark, she said.

"But even so, it is refreshing and encouraging that even one state High Court understands that a minor's decision to abort in secrecy is not absolute," Balch said.