That state that wanted to change their "under 18 abortion disclosure" law and got turned down by SC made me wonder...what exactly was the Constitutional authority under which RvW was decided?
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That state that wanted to change their "under 18 abortion disclosure" law and got turned down by SC made me wonder...what exactly was the Constitutional authority under which RvW was decided?
In the way of 'literal' interpretation, absolutely none !
a condensation of the legal issues raised in arriving at the Roe v. Wade majority decision can be found here ...
among these legal issues was a de-facto court interpretation that a fetus is not a 'person' under the law, that prior to the appearance of signs of life (codified to be the first 12 weeks of pregnancy) a fetus has no rights whatsoever, and therefore that any choices made by the prospective mother and her doctor to remove tissue from her uterus prior to signs of life were strictly a matter of personal privacy.
The same personal privacy issue was undoubtedly at the core of today's Supreme Court non-decision i.e. that the rights of privacy are the same for a girl who is under 18 as for a girl over 18, and therefore allow the exclusion of parental involvement if the girl so wishes.
Today's Supreme Court non-decision is also going to be the source of much controversy given the Supreme Court's recent decision to outlaw the death penalty for persons under 18. The fundamental tenet of the death penalty decision was that persons under 18 are not fully 'competent' i.e. not able to understand that a black and white decision to kill another person may be followed by forfeiture of their own life as a consequence. Today's non-decision concerning abortions for girls under 18 based entirely on the girl's own 'competent' judgement and without parental knowledge or consent is in direct contradiction to the fundamental tenet of the under 18 death penalty decision.