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Court upholds Montana abortion notification law
March 31, 1997
Web posted at: 5:18 p.m. EST (2218 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a pair of decisions on the abortion issue Monday, upholding a state parental notification law and rejecting an appeal by students who objected to paying for a health insurance program that covered abortions.
In the parental notification case, the nine justices unanimously reversed a lower court decision that struck down a Montana state law.
The Montana law requires that an unmarried minor notify one parent at least 48 hours before she has an abortion. A judge could grant a waiver of the requirement if convinced that the minor is mature enough to make the decision independently, or if she proves that notification would go against her best interests.
The justices said the lower court "was mistaken" when it overturned the law. Montana's law was similar enough to measures that had already passed the high court's scrutiny to be allowed to stand.
In the insurance case, the court without comment rejected an appeal by six former University of California-Davis students who argued that the schools' mandatory registration fee violated their free exercise of religion because part of it paid for a health plan that covered abortions.
Lawyers for the university argued before the court that citizens "do not have religious line-item veto power over government spending."
In other actions Monday, the court:
- upheld a 1992 law that requires cable television systems
to carry local broadcasters.
- without comment, turned down a minister's argument that a
New Jersey law that protects gays from discrimination
violates his free-speech right to condemn homosexuality as
sinful.
- upheld the conviction of a former Tennessee judge on
charges that he assaulted several women in his courthouse
office.
- without comment, left intact lower court rulings that
allow public school officials to ban elementary students from
handing out leaflets in school hallways.
- let stand, without comment, a ruling that allows copyright
fees to be paid in some cases when students use packets of
photocopies instead of books for classwork.
- invalidated changes Mississippi made in its "motor voter"
law because the state did not obtain Justice Department
approval first.
- agreed to consider a case that would clarify when some
illegal aliens may be given longer prison sentences for re-
entering the U.S. illegally.
- agreed to consider a case that would determine how much control a state's wrongful-death law has in lawsuits alleging that someone died because federal rights were violated.
Related sites:
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window- Justices of the Supreme Court
- National Abortion Rights and Reproductive Rights Action League
- Operation Rescue National
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