Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • What if Roe Fell? U.S. Abortion Laws Map
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • What if Roe Fell? U.S. Abortion Laws Map
    • Take Action Toolkit
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal
Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • What if Roe Fell? U.S. Abortion Laws Map
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • What if Roe Fell? U.S. Abortion Laws Map
    • Take Action Toolkit
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Legal Restrictions, Adolescent SRHR

Regions:

United States

Work:

In the Courts

Type:

News, Press Releases

Case Archive

For updates on this case and others, explore our case archive here.

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

  • Hidden

07.10.2003

In the Courts Adolescent SRHR United States News

Florida Supreme Court Upholds Young Women’s Constitutional Right to Abortion

Justin Goldberg

Share this Story

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id
Parental Notification Law Struck Down

Tallahassee, FL Today, in a 5-1 decision, the Florida Supreme Court struck down a law requiring physicians to notify a parent or legal guardian before performing an abortion on a young woman.

The court found the law unconstitutional because it violates young women’s right to choose abortion without furthering any compelling state interest. In doing so, it stated “[O]ur decision today in no way interferes with a parent’s right to participate in the decision-making process or a minor’s right to consult with her parents. Just the opposite. Under our decision, parent and minor are free to do as they wish in this regard, without government interference.”

“Today’s landmark decision by the Florida Supreme Court is a great victory not only for the young women of this state, but all of its citizens who care about their right to make personal decisions about their reproductive health and lives,” said Bebe Anderson, a staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights and lead counsel on the case. “In striking down Florida’s forced parental involvement law, the Court recognized the harms that such laws impose on young women, including possible physical and emotional abuse, lack of access to confidential medical care, forced teen motherhood and delay in obtaining medical care.”

“We are elated that the Florida Supreme Court has made clear in no uncertain terms that young women’s reproductive rights will be vigorously protected in this state,” added Anderson. The extensive evidence in this case showed that, even without state-mandated parental notification, most minors, especially younger minors, tell at least one parent of the planned abortion. Of those minors who don’t involve a parent, many voluntarily involve another adult, such as a grandparent or older sibling.

Parental notification and consent laws do not further family communications and only hurt minors. In families where abusive relationships or other problems prevent good communication between parents and their teenage daughters, state-mandated discussions can exacerbate existing problems. For battered teenagers and incest survivors in particular, mandatory parental involvement laws increase the risks in an already dangerous situation. Over 10 years ago, Florida’s Supreme Court found a parental consent law unconstitutional, today’s decision reaffirmed that earlier ruling and found that parental notification laws contain similar constitutional flaws. Laws that restrict minors’ access to abortion, whether by parental consent or notice, harm young women’s health and violate their constitutional rights.

In February 2001, the First District Court of Appeal found the state law requiring parental notification valid under the Florida Constitution, ignoring strong evidence presented at the trial court level attesting to the harmful impact the law would have on minors. Circuit Court Judge Terry P. Lewis ruled that the law was unconstitutional in May 2000, finding that it did not serve a compelling state interest and that it violated the explicit privacy clause in Florida’s constitution, which allows young women the same right to privacy as adult women. The parental notice law has never gone into effect.

Amicus briefs were filed on behalf of the plaintiffs by the American Civil Liberties Union, American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, Society for Adolescent Medicine, and the Women’s Law Project.

Plaintiffs in North Florida Women’s Health & Counseling Services, Inc., et al. v. State of Florida, et al. (Case No: SC01-843) include 9 abortion providers and clinics, as well as women’s rights groups from across Florida. They are represented by Bebe Anderson of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Richard E. Johnson of Tallahassee, and Dara Klassel of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Related Posts

June Medical Services v. Gee: Brief of Plaintiffs-Appellees

Abortion, Legal Restrictions,United States,In the Courts

June Medical Services v. Kliebert – Findings of Facts and Conclusions of Law

Abortion, Legal Restrictions, Other Barriers,United States,In the Courts

Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest v. Streur, et al.: Alaska Supreme Court Brief of Appellee

Abortion, Legal Restrictions, Other Barriers, Funding for Reproductive Healthcare, Public Funding,United States,In the Courts

Sign up for our newsletter.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2021)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up