TALLAHASSEE, Florida (LifeSiteNews) – A three-judge panel of the U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals struck down the judicial bypass provision of Florida’s restrictions on underage abortions, ruling it inconsistent with both the U.S. Constitution and the state’s parental-rights law.
The Associated Press reported that the law was challenged by state Attorney General James Uthmeier in a case concerning an anonymous 17-year-old seeking an abortion without her father’s knowledge or consent. A lower court previously found that the girl lacks the “requisite maturity” to decide on her own, based on lack of “emotional development and stability, her credibility and demeanor as a witness, her ability to accept responsibility, and her ability to assess the immediate and long-range consequences of her choices.”
The Fifth Circuit panel agreed, writing that “Whatever asserted constitutional abortion rights may have justified Florida’s judicial-waiver regime in the past unequivocally have been repudiated by both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court,” adding that the matter is of “great public importance” for the Florida Supreme Court to take up and resolve more conclusively.
Though commonly opposed by the abortion industry and its activist allies, parental involvement rules for underage abortions stop the practice from being used by sexual abusers to cover up and continue their crimes, as is often the case – sometimes with the knowledge and cooperation of Planned Parenthood staffers, as established by undercover investigations by the pro-life group Live Action.
Most abortions are illegal in Florida, thanks to last year’s defeat of a proposed constitutional amendment that would have gutted the state’s heartbeat law and other restrictions. Abortions dropped by more than 12,000 in Florida last year, the sharpest decline in the country.
However, work continues to restrict abortion further still, such as a pending bill to allow family members to sue for the wrongful death of a preborn child. That bill passed the state House but on May 3 was “indefinitely postponed and withdrawn from consideration” in the state Senate, with which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has been at odds over a multitude of issues.
