NRL News
Page 24
March 2007
Volume 34
Issue 3

Illinois Abortion Law Moves into New Phase
By Dave Andrusko

The battle over Illinois’s never-enforced parental involvement law, which began in 1995, has taken several new twists in the past few months. That includes a new measure introduced in February that further enlarges the pool of adults who could authorize a minor girl to have an abortion.

Under the original law, the list of parties an abortionist about to kill the unborn child of a minor girl under 18 could notify included a parent, a step-parent living in the household, a grandparent, or a legal guardian.

The 1995 law allowed minor girls to seek a judicial bypass or declare in writing that she had been neglected or abused. However, the Illinois General Assembly left it to the state Supreme Court to come up with rules for how a girl can seek a waiver from a judge and appeal a ruling that did not give her the waiver.

When the justices at the time didn’t, the Illinois ACLU went to court and a federal judge blocked the law from taking effect

All that changed last September when the state Supreme Court unexpectedly issued the rules. It said that the judge hearing the girl’s petition should try to make a decision at the end of the hearing, or within 48 hours, according to published accounts.

With that as backdrop, in January Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan asked the Chicago-based federal court to dissolve the order barring the law from being enforced. Her position was explained in the papers she filed with the court.

“It is my duty to uphold the Constitution and to defend the laws of this state if they are constitutional,” Madigan said in the statement. She added that “courts have upheld many parental notice laws that are similar to the [Illinois] act.”

According to the Chicago Tribune, “Madigan agreed with abortion opponents who said that any constitutional defect in the law was cured in September when the Illinois Supreme Court issued key rules governing how minors can seek a waiver of the notification requirement in special circum-stances.” Madigan asked the court “to give the state’s circuit courts time to train their staff to handle the new procedures.” Naturally, the ACLU challenged Madigan’s motion.

However, in February U.S. District Court Judge David Coar kept the order barring enforcement in place. He said not all 102 Illinois counties had put rules and procedures into effect.

“He did not rule on the law’s constitutionality,” the Tribune reported, “and told lawyers for Madigan’s office they could try again to get the injunction lifted once all counties have rules in effect.”

But subsequently an Illinois House committee passed HB 317. Under HB 317, “a girl younger than 18 could obtain an abortion without notifying her parents if she first talked to a counselor, physician or clergy member about her decision and was advised of various options,” reported the Springfield State Journal Register.  The measure now goes to the full House.

“HB 317 would allow a teenage girl to get an abortion if she brought the abortionist a note from her 18-year-old brother,” said Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life. “It turns the notion of parental notification into a sham. It’s time that the abortion lobby stops demonizing parents and allows mothers and fathers the right to raise their own children.”