Americans United for Life

Americans United for Life protects and defends human life from conception to natural death through vigorous legislative, judicial, and educational leadership.

Parental Involvement

AULA Partners with Montana Family Foundation to File Amicus Brief Demonstrating that Parental Involvement Laws Protect Teens



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WASHINGTON, D.C. (08-27-13) — AULA and Montana Family Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief this week in the First Judicial District Court supporting Montana’s parental consent and parental notice laws against a challenge by Planned Parenthood. “Children victimized by sexual predators or vulnerable to pressure from an abortion sales team need adult involvement when making such a life-changing decision,” said Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest.

She continued, “Abortion harms women, and medical evidence demonstrates that young girls are particularly susceptible to those risks. Yet Planned Parenthood continues its attempts to block commonsense regulations aimed at protecting the health and welfare of young girls and the rights of their parents.”

Medical research indicates that minors who abort have an astonishing 78.6 percent chance of experiencing major depression afterward.

“Not only would Montana’s laws ensure that parents are given the opportunity to help their daughters receive all the information they need to make the best decision, but it also ensures that parents of a daughter who chooses abortion will know about the risk they face.”

In 2011, the citizens of Montana passed Legislative Referendum 120, the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 2011, requiring parental notice before abortion.  The initiative was overwhelmingly supported with over 70 percent of the vote.  Then in 2013, the Montana Legislature enacted House Bill 391, the Parental Consent for Abortion Act of 2013, requiring parental consent before abortion.  Planned Parenthood is challenging both laws.

AULA’s amicus brief in Planned Parenthood of Montana v. State of Montana, available here, demonstrates that parental consent and notice laws decrease both minor abortion rates and minor birth rates, that abortion carries significant physical and psychological risks, and that minors are particularly susceptible to these risks.

AULA attorneys have been actively involved in the fight to protect minors and parental rights in Montana.  The challenged laws are based on AULA model language, and AUL consulted with allies in Montana during consideration and passage of the laws.

AUL Celebrates Victory in the 30-year Struggle to Protect Young Girls in Illinois



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“Too often sexual predators try to cover their crimes by forcing their minor victims to obtain abortions,” said AUL’s General Counsel, Ovide Lamontagne. “Young women are entitled to adult counsel when considering either a chemical or a surgical abortion and all their implications.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. (07-11-13) – Since the 1970s, Americans United for Life has partnered with Illinois advocates for life to protect the lives and health of Illinois women and girls. Today, in a case that stretches back decades, AUL celebrates the fact that young girls in Illinois will soon be protected by a state law requiring parental notification before obtaining an abortion. The Illinois Supreme Court’s rejection of the ACLU’s claims that the law is unconstitutional is a significant step in providing a common-sense approach to protect the health of young women.

The latest iteration of the law, enacted in 1995, has been enjoined for nearly two decades as both state and federal courts considered its constitutionality. In The Hope Clinic for Women, Ltd v. Flores, the Illinois Supreme Court today affirmed a lower court’s decision dismissing the ACLU’s challenge and paved the way for this protective law to go into effect in 35 days.

“The Illinois Supreme Court’s decision is a significant victory on many levels,” noted AUL’s General Counsel, Ovide Lamontagne. “It is a victory for young girls, who until now have been left unprotected and vulnerable to a largely unregulated abortion industry in Illinois. It is also a victory for parents, who can be assured that the predatory abortion industry can no longer perform abortion procedures on their daughters without their knowledge. And it is a victory for the unborn as research demonstrates that parental involvement laws decrease the abortion rate.”

“This decision also has significant implications for minors from other states as well. It is well-known that minors from Missouri frequently cross the state line into Illinois to avoid Missouri’s parental consent law. This is a landmark decision protecting minors all over the Midwest, as well as the rights of their parents.”

For decades, AUL has been actively involved in passing and later defending the Illinois parental notice law. In 1995, AUL attorneys helped to draft the challenged law, and, more recently, AUL filed an amicus curiae brief, available here, in the Illinois Supreme Court on behalf of Illinois legislators, demonstrating that parental involvement laws decrease both abortion rates and birth rates among minors. AUL’s brief also detailed that chemical and surgical abortion procedures performed on young women carry significant physical and psychological risks, and that minors are particularly susceptible to these risks.

The Illinois Supreme Court’s decision marks the end of a more than 30-year struggle to protect young girls in Illinois, which now becomes the 40th state to require parental involvement before abortion.

Alaska Parental Notice Law Upheld, Minors Finally Protected After 15-Year Battle



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After 15 years of protracted legal wrangling, Alaska’s parental notice law has been upheld and Planned Parenthood has failed in its attempt to place its financial bottom line and radical political ideology over the health and welfare of minor girls and their families.  

In Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest v. State of Alaska, the Superior Court for the State of Alaska ruled that the parental notification law, which requires an abortion provider to give notice to a parent or guardian before performing an abortion on a minor, does not violate the state’s constitution.  The court also upheld provisions requiring that the parent or guardian provide valid identification and providing for criminal penalties for those who violate the law. 

While the case is likely to be appealed, this decision represents a major victory for the people of Alaska, who have worked tirelessly to adopt and enforce protections for minors seeking abortion.  In 1997, the state legislature enacted a parental consent statute, but that law was ultimately struck down under the auspices of the state constitution’s “right-to-privacy,” with the state supreme court holding that the state privacy right confers a broader “right” to abortion than the U.S. Constitution.

 But the people of Alaska were undeterred.  In 2010, Alaskans passed a ballot initiative requiring that abortion providers notify a parent or guardian before a minor’s abortion.  Of course, Planned Parenthood immediately filed suit.  Shortly thereafter, Alaskans won their first victory—the state trial court refused to enjoin most of the new law, and the law went into effect while the litigation continued.  

While this decision is a tremendous victory, not all of the court’s factual findings were entirely accurate.  For example, the court concluded that abortion carries no risk of pre-term birth or psychological harm—risks which are actually well-documented in the medical literature. 

But overall, pro-life advocates should be encouraged by this decision.  AUL attorneys have been actively involved in the fight to protect minors and parental rights in Alaska.  AUL has repeatedly consulted with legislators, attorneys, and other allies in Alaska, filed a brief in the Alaska Supreme Court in defense of the 1997 parental consent law, helped to prepare the attorney who argued in defense of the parental consent law, and vetted the language of the 2010 parental involvement ballot initiative.

AUL supports parental notice law in brief to Illinois Supreme Court



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This week AUL filed an amicus brief in the Illinois Supreme Court supporting a state law requiring parental notice before minors can obtain abortions.

The Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act was enacted in 1995, but the ACLU has been using litigation to stall its enforcement.  Considering almost 17 years have passed since the law’s enactment, practically an entire generation of young girls has been left unprotected. Sadly, women who were teenagers when the statute was enacted are now in their 30s.

The ACLU has argued that there is “no justification” for the General Assembly’s action in passing the law. In its brief, AUL refutes that claim, demonstrating that there are numerous studies demonstrating that parental involvement laws decrease both minor abortion and birth rates. AUL also details numerous studies demonstrating that abortion harms women—and especially minors—both physically and psychologically, and that parental involvement laws help shield minors from sexual exploitation.

Significantly, every state bordering Illinois has an enforceable parental involvement law—meaning that minors are currently coming into Illinois to avoid their own state laws.  If the Illinois Supreme Court upholds the law, it would be protecting both minors within the state as well as ensuring the health and safety of those girls who come into the state for abortions without their parents’ knowledge (and enhancing the enforceability of the other state laws).

The brief was filed on behalf of Illinois Senators Tim Bivins (Dixon), William R. Haine (Alton), and Matt Murphy (Palatine), and Illinois Representatives Robert A. Biggins (Elmhurst), Robert W. Pritchard (Hinckley), David Reis (Sainte Marie), Jim Sacia (Pecatonica), and Jil Tracy (Quincy).

The brief is available here.

Majority of Americans support basic abortion restrictions, but conscience protections misunderstood



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On Monday, Gallup published the results of a recent poll demonstrating that “[l]arge majorities of Americans favor the broad intent of several types of abortion restriction laws that are now common in many states, but have mixed or negative reactions to others.”

On one level, the results affirmed what AUL has been saying for years: Americans do not support abortion-on-demand and support commonsense laws that protect both the woman and the unborn child. For example, the majority of states maintain informed consent requirements (31), parental involvement laws (37), and fetal homicide laws (38). According to the poll, 87 percent of Americans support informed consent restrictions, with 69 percent supporting laws requiring a 24-hour reflection period before a woman has an abortion. Similarly, 71 percent of Americans support laws requiring parental consent before a minor obtains an abortion. Even when broken down into partisan numbers, 61 percent of Democrats favor such parental consent laws.

On another level, however, the numbers indicated that more education is necessary to ensure that the American public understands what is at stake in funding abortion providers and in failing to support the conscience rights of health care providers. Gallup reported that 57 percent of Americans oppose laws that prohibit health clinics that provide abortion services from receiving federal funds. In addition, 51 percent of Americans oppose laws allowing pharmacists or other health care providers to opt out of providing medicine or surgical procedures that result in abortion.

These numbers demonstrate the need to further educate the American people (and especially legislators, political pundits, and the media) on 1) the harm inherent in abortion for women, and 2) the constitutional bedrock of conscience in this nation.

First, it is imperative to dispel the myth that “women need abortion.” Touted by financially-interested providers who claim that abortion constitutes necessary “health care” and that women need abortion in order to further their life goals, this myth is eviscerated by medical evidence demonstrating time and time again that abortion carries serious physical and psychological consequences. For example, the majority of women who have abortions do so early in their reproductive lives, and desire to have children at a later date. But at least 114 studies have demonstrated a statistically significant association between induced abortion and pre-term birth in subsequence pregnancies. Women do not need “health care” that places their health, lives, and fertility at risk. Indeed, abortion is not “health care” at all.

Second, conscience protections are rooted in the U.S. Constitution itself. To quote Thomas Jefferson, no provision in the Constitution “ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of civil authority.”

Moreover, the connection between the war on health care rights of conscience and the advancement of the “abortion right” cannot be overemphasized. Recent events demonstrate this connection. In 2010, the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug ella as a contraceptive. In other words, it is now available by prescription nationwide. However, ella is not truly a “contraceptive” as we generally understand the term; instead, it is of the same class of drugs as the abortion drug RU-486 and can act to kill an already-implanted embryo. Thus, if the conscience rights of pharmacists are not protected, pharmacists will be forced to provide ella and other abortion drugs.

In sum, the Gallup results are cause for both encouragement and concern. It is the goal of AUL to ensure that with more education on the harms of abortion, the need for abortion restrictions, and the importance of conscience protections, these numbers will continue to grow more pro-life with each passing year.

Once again, Illinois courts refuse to protect minors from harms of abortion



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On Friday, an Illinois appellate court remanded Hope Clinic for Women v. Adams—a case filed by the ACLU seeking to strike down Illinois’ parental notification law—to a lower court for trial.

Enacted in 1995, the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act (“Act”) has been plagued with litigation for 16 years. While the Act is clearly constitutional under the U.S. Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the ACLU and its allies in the Illinois courts keep finding ways to stall the Act’s eventual enforcement. This time around, the ACLU is arguing that the Act violates privacy and gender discrimination clauses in the Illinois constitution. While these arguments are not plausible and were rejected by the trial court, the Illinois appellate court reversed and remanded the claims for trial. This means that more weeks, months, or even years of litigation are ahead—with minors left unprotected from the harms of abortion in Illinois, and parents left without a role in the abortion decisions of their daughters.

Considering 16 years have already passed since the Act’s enactment, practically an entire generation of young girls has been left unprotected. Sadly, women who were minors when the statute was enacted are now in their 30s.

Without delving into the appellate court’s murky legal analysis and procedural discussion, a couple excerpts from the decision demonstrate that the court made this determination in an effort to stall what many believe will be the ultimate upholding of this law by the Illinois Supreme Court:

1) In regard to the constitutionality of parental involvement statutes, the appellate court stated, “Although seven justices in [Planned Parenthood v.] Casey appeared to agree that a parental consent provision was constitutional, they were unable to agree to an opinion concerning this provision. Thus, it is hard to know what this decision stands for on this issue.” While it could be said that the different Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed on how and why parental involvement statutes are constitutional, it is a farce to say that we do not know what the Casey decision stands for in regard to parental involvement statutes. The U.S. Supreme Court has been explicitly clear that parental involvement statutes are constitutional as long as they contain a judicial bypass mechanism (i.e., a way for minors to approach the court and avoid notifying their parents if it is not in their best interests). To say otherwise indicates that the court is grasping at straws to help the ACLU stall the inevitable enforcement of the Act.

2) The appellate court ruled that the Act results in “sex-based distinctions.” The appellate court’s rationale is that the law would permit a minor male, without notifying his parents, to consent or withhold consent for a surgical procedure for his child, even if that decision might endanger the health or life of that child, while requiring parental notice for young women seeking to abort. But this is an improper analogy. The law also allows minor women to make those same decisions—without parental notice—for their born children. On the other hand, the court missed the fact that minor boys can NEVER make decisions for their unborn children, while minor girls can. If the court wants to use a true analogy, then should we not then say that minor males are being discriminated against because they have no power to, to quote the court, “make a similar decision for a fetus”?

In the coming weeks, we will know more about Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s next steps in further litigating this case. There is a chance she could take the case to the Illinois Supreme Court; on the other hand, being a pro-abortion sympathizer, she could just let the case languish in the trial court a while longer.

Either way, the sad reality is that minor girls continue to be left without the protection of the Illinois parental notification law. And in light of recent reports that abortion complications and deaths in Illinois are vastly underreported, it could mean the difference between life and death for some young girls.