H. L. v. Matheson

Last updated
H. L. v. Matheson
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued October 6, 1980
Decided March 23, 1981
Full case nameH. L. v. Scott M. Matheson, Governor of Utah, et al.
Citations450 U.S. 398 ( more )
101 S. Ct. 1164; 67 L. Ed. 2d 388; 1981 U.S. LEXIS 81
Case history
Prior604 P.2d 907 (Utah 1979); probable jurisdiction noted, 445 U.S. 903(1980).
Holding
A state may require a doctor to inform a teenaged girl's parents before performing an abortion or face criminal penalty.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Warren E. Burger
Associate Justices
William J. Brennan Jr.  · Potter Stewart
Byron White  · Thurgood Marshall
Harry Blackmun  · Lewis F. Powell Jr.
William Rehnquist  · John P. Stevens
Case opinions
MajorityBurger, joined by Stewart, White, Powell, Rehnquist
ConcurrencePowell, joined by Stewart
ConcurrenceStevens
DissentMarshall, joined by Brennan, Blackmun

H. L. v. Matheson, 450 U.S. 398 (1981), was a United States Supreme Court abortion rights case, according to which a state may require a doctor to inform a teenaged girl's parents before performing an abortion or face criminal penalty. [1]

Contents

Overview

A female minor, known by her initials H.L., was living in Utah with her parents when she became pregnant in 1978. A doctor advised H.L. that an abortion would be in her best medical interests. A Utah law enacted in 1974 required abortion providers to "[n]otify, if possible" the parents of any female under the age of majority who is scheduled to undergo an abortion, at least 24 hours before the abortion. [2] Violation was a misdemeanor subject to a fine up to $1000 and/or several months imprisonment. H.L. initiated a lawsuit as part of a proposed class action of unmarried unemancipated females, arguing that Utah's parental notification statute was unconstitutional. Scott M. Matheson, then the governor of Utah, was named as the defendant.

The case made its way to the Utah Supreme Court, where the law was upheld as consistent with Roe v. Wade (1973). The judgment noted, among other points, that H.L.'s proposed class action was overly broad; and that the Utah statute mandated parental notification but did not grant parents authority to stop such an abortion. [3]

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Utah's statute was upheld on a 6 to 3 vote.

See also

Related Research Articles

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case regarding abortion. In a plurality opinion, the Court upheld the constitutional right to have an abortion that was established in Roe v. Wade (1973), but altered the standard for analyzing restrictions on that right, crafting the undue burden standard for abortion restrictions.

Michael William McConnell is a constitutional law scholar who served as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit from 2002 to 2009. Since 2009, McConnell has been a professor and Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. He is also a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and Senior Of Counsel to the Litigation Practice Group at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. In May 2020, Facebook appointed him to its content oversight board.

Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, 546 U.S. 320 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving a facial challenge to New Hampshire's parental notification abortion law. The First Circuit had ruled that the law was unconstitutional and an injunction against its enforcement was proper. The Supreme Court vacated this judgment and remanded the case, but avoided a substantive ruling on the challenged law or a reconsideration of prior Supreme Court abortion precedent. Instead, the Court only addressed the issue of remedy, holding that invalidating a statute in its entirety "is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief."

Patrick Higginbotham American judge

Patrick Errol Higginbotham is an American judge and lawyer who serves as a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990), was a United States Supreme Court abortion rights case that dealt with whether a state law may require notification of both parents before a minor can obtain an abortion. The law in question provided a judicial alternative.

Many jurisdictions have laws applying to minors and abortion. These parental involvement laws require that one or more parents consent or be informed before their minor daughter may legally have an abortion.

Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States, citing a constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, struck down a Washington state law that allowed any third party to petition state courts for child visitation rights over parental objections.

Scott M. Matheson American politician

Scott Milne Matheson Jr. was an American politician who served as the 12th Governor of Utah from 1977 to 1985. He is the most recent Democrat to serve in that position.

Jane Elizabeth Hodgson Physician, obstetrician, gynecologist

Jane Elizabeth Hodgson was an American obstetrician and gynecologist. Hodgson received a bachelor's degree from Carleton College and her M.D. from the University of Minnesota. She trained at the Jersey City Medical Center and at the Mayo Clinic.

Parental consent laws in some countries require that one or more parents consent to or be notified before their minor child can legally engage in certain activities.

Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979), is a United States Supreme Court case that ruled 8-1 that teenagers do not have to secure parental consent to obtain an abortion.

Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976), is a United States Supreme Court case on abortion. The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of a Missouri statute regulating abortion. The Court upheld the right to have an abortion, declaring unconstitutional the statute's requirement of prior written consent from a parent or a spouse.

Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132 (1976), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a Massachusetts law requiring parental consent to a minor's abortion, under the provision that "if one or both of the [minor]'s parents refuse... consent, consent may be obtained by order of a judge... for good cause shown." The decision was unanimous, and the opinion of the Court was written by Harry Blackmun. The law in question "permits a minor capable of giving informed consent to obtain a court order allowing abortion without parental consultation, and further permits even a minor incapable of giving informed consent to obtain an abortion order without parental consultation where it is shown that abortion would be in her best interests."

2008 California Proposition 4

Proposition 4, or the Abortion Waiting Period and Parental Notification Initiative, also known to its supporters as Sarah's Law, was an initiative state constitutional amendment on the 2008 California General Election ballot

The mature minor doctrine is a rule of law found in the United States and Canada accepting that an unemancipated minor patient may possess the maturity to choose or reject a particular health care treatment, sometimes without the knowledge or agreement of parents, and should be permitted to do so. It is now generally considered a form of patients rights; formerly, the mature minor rule was largely seen as protecting health care providers from criminal and civil claims by parents of minors at least 15.

Diamond v. Charles, 476 U.S. 54 (1986), was a United States Supreme Court case that determined that citizens do not have Article III standing to challenge the constitutionality of a state statute in federal court unless they possess a "direct stake" in the outcome.

Sterilization law is the area of law, within reproductive rights, that gives a person the right to choose or refuse reproductive sterilization and governs when the government may limit this fundamental right. Sterilization law includes federal and state constitutional law, statutory law, administrative law, and common law. This article primarily focuses on laws concerning compulsory sterilization that have not been repealed or abrogated and are still good laws, in whole or in part, in each jurisdiction.

Timeline of women's legal rights in the United States represents formal legal changes and reforms regarding women's rights in the United States. That includes actual law reforms as well as other formal changes, such as reforms through new interpretations of laws by precedents. For such things outside as well as in the United States, see Timeline of women's legal rights. The right to vote is exempted from the timeline: for that right, see Timeline of women's suffrage in the United States. The timeline also excludes ideological changes and events within feminism and antifeminism: for that, see Timeline of feminism in the United States.

Abortion in Pennsylvania is legal. 51% of adults said in a poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Abortion in New Hampshire is legal. Abortion was criminalized in the state by 1900. In June 2003, the state passed a parental notification law, repealing it four years later before passing a new one in 2011. New Hampshire's abortion laws have been heard before the US Supreme Court, including the case Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England in 2006. The number of abortion clinics in New Hampshire has declined over the years, with eighteen in 1982, sixteen in 1992 and four in 2014. In 2010, there were three publicly funded abortions in the state, of which three were federally funded and zero were state funded. There are active abortion rights and anti-abortion rights activists in the state.

References

  1. H. L. v. Matheson, 450 U.S. 398 (1981).
  2. Utah Code Annotated § 76-7-304(2). Note that as of 2008, the law has been revised to exclude parental notification requirement if a doctor advises an abortion is medically necessary to save the mother's life or avoid serious medical complications, if the parents have a history of abuse towards the minor female, if the pregnancy is a result of parental incest, or if the parents have not assumed responsibility for the minor's care and upbringing.
  3. H. L. v. Matheson, 604P.2d907 ( Utah 1979).

Further reading