Parental Rights and Civil Wrongs: School-based Clinics and Abortion

Chuck Donovan / March 25, 2010

A Seattle area mother is distraught because a school-based clinic at her daughter’s high school arranged for the girl to have an abortion, even providing a taxicab to the clinic, without notice to her parents. A spokesman for the King County Health Department summarized the situation simply when he commented, “At any age in the state of Washington, an individual can consent to a termination of pregnancy.”

Washington is one of a handful of states that do not have a parental notice or consent law, according to Americans United for Life. In fact, the group’s rankings of the 50 states on the extent to which they provide for such policies as informed consent, parental notice, and conscience protection ranks Washington at a very low 42nd nationally. In states where parental notice/consent laws exist, they typically also require judicial bypasses for minors who can demonstrate, independent of their parents, that they are “mature” or that the abortion would be in their “best interest.” (more…)