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A landmark lawsuit argues parental notification for abortion violates state equality and abortion rights protections, while disproportionately burdening young women.As Republicans ever more relentlessly attack abortion rights in states across the country, women’s rights advocates are rediscovering underutilized state Colorado is now ground zero for that fight, where Dr.
Rebecca Cohen is challenging a state law requiring young women under the age of 18 to notify a parent 48 hours before accessing an abortion or navigate the courts to obtain permission to access this basic care.Rupali Sharma, litigation co-director of The Lawyering Project, which represents Cohen, said the law is as harmful as it is pointless: “The parental involvement requirement punishes for deciding that they want to end a pregnancy instead of continuing it, but doesn’t have any countervailing benefits.” According to the complaint, the parental notice requirement forces the most vulnerable young women who cannot safely involve a parent—such as those fleeing abuse, coercion or housing insecurity—to navigate a punitive judicial bypass process just to access care they are already constitutionally entitled to. … The state … is treating you fundamentally differently than your male partner, who has also participated in bringing this pregnancy along.that women’s primary role is to bear and raise children irrespective of their individual circumstances, needs, talents and aspirations. The double standard is stark: Young women in Colorado who choose to continue a pregnancy need no parental involvement, but those who choose to end one must navigate a punitive court process. Meanwhile, young men face no such burden at all. “Not only is the state trying to coerce you to carry your pregnancy to term, but it’s treating you fundamentally differently than your male partner, who has also participated in bringing this pregnancy along,” said Sharma. “The law violates the Colorado ERA because it requires young women to involve a parent or judge in their decision to end a pregnancy while placing no comparable burdens on their partners, who are young men,” said Sharma. “That disparity is built on a deeply embedded cultural assumption: the stereotype that women, including young women, are primarily responsible for channeling sexual activity into procreative purposes.” Even if the judicial bypass process is a little more than a rubber stamp—a formality that almost always ends in approval—it reinforces that stereotype by punishing young women for having sex for non-procreative purposes, while their partners walk free. “There is this fear, this trepidation, this panic that young women are going to have sex for pleasure, and if they’re going to, they should pay a price for it,” said Sharma. Some legislators who voted for the Colorado parental notification law explicitly said they hoped it would be a deterrent to young women engaging in sexual activity—“but nobody seems very invested in their partners paying a price for it,” said Sharma. The case also argues that the law is rooted in a paternalistic stereotype that young women do not have the capacity to make rational decisions about their healthcare and their lives. “The law assumes young women need someone overseeing their decisions and second-guessing them, and making sure they are making the right decision,” said Sharma.The Colorado law delays clinicians from providing abortion to young women under 18 until at least 48 hours after she notifies a parent or secures a judge’s ruling she is “sufficiently mature to decide whether to have an abortion” or that the abortion is in her “best interest.” This judicial process coerces young women to divulge intimate information to a series of strangers, compromising their safety, health and dignity, says the The law assumes young women won’t talk to their parents without being forced to, but research says otherwise. “Years of research show that these laws don’t do anything to actually increase the likelihood that people will talk to their parents because people already talk to their parents when their relationship allows them to do so,” said Sharma. “The people who can’t are then forced to go to court to make their case to a judge—often an elderly person, often a man—that they should be able to do something as personal, as important, as no longer remaining pregnant, giving birth and having a child.” Abortion rights activists demonstrate in support of women’s rights on July 16, 2022, in Santa Monica, Calif. They marched to a Planned Parenthood clinic as a counter-protest to an antiabortion group that had targeted the location the previous week. of young women do not confide in a parent, and when they don’t, the situation is dire: Their parents are unavailable, incapacitated, abusive or unsupportive. For some parents, notification doesn’t protect young women: It isyoung women physical harm, emotional abuse, eviction from their homes or coercion into carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. of why young women chose not to inform their parents, 41 percent feared being thrown out of their home or cut off from their family, 27 percent feared damage to family relationships and 13 percent feared physical or emotional abuse. The studythat every adolescent whose parents learned of their pregnancy accurately anticipated their reactions. Time and again, forced notification exacerbated existing family tensions andBeyond causing family turmoil, the law creates another burden: delay. Colorado’s parental notification requirement delays time-sensitive abortion care, driving up costs and medical risks, compromising the doctor-patient relationship and causing serious psychological distress. Court documents reveal one minor experienced a two to three week delay in obtaining an abortion and another experienced an eight to nine day delay. “Each day that someone remains pregnant against her will can be agonizing, particularly if the pregnancy resulted from abuse,” states the complaint. Delays may also push young women past the point at which they can use medications to end a pregnancy, so they have to have invasive procedural abortion, which can be traumatic for young rape survivors. Young women already tend to discover they are pregnant later than adults, meaning they seek abortion care later in their pregnancy to begin with. Delays are further exacerbated by Colorado’s status as a destination state for abortion, drawing patients from nearby states where abortion is banned, such as Texas. The law compounds these barriers. “Based on how the law actually operates in our plaintiff’s experience, this law is denying some people’s access to abortion, delaying some people’s access to abortion and certainly burdening it,” said Sharma. The message it sends to young women is clear. “You make this choice instead of the choice that the state wants you to make, and you have to run a gauntlet to be able to exercise your choice.” The process is as grueling as it is invasive. Judicial permission requires minors to obtain an attorney, prepare a petition, testify at a hearing and potentially appeal a denial—a process that can take weeks. They are then forced to divulge intimate information to a series of strangers, including attorneys, court personnel and judges, answering personal questions about their sexual and reproductive history, family dynamics, socioeconomic background and academic standing. Research shows this invasion of privacy causes humiliation, shame, stigma and trauma for young women. These laws are supposed to be because we care about young women. … The problem is that this law is harming them, it’s not protecting them. There is a special harm in forcing someone to remain pregnant and give birth.“Even when this job is done as well as it can be, with as much compassion and support as it can be, it is a grueling experience,” said Sharma. The stakes for these young women could not be higher. “Young people are terrified that they’re going to end their own dreams by not giving the right answer, and now having to be put in a position where they’re pregnant against their will and they potentially have to arrange for an adoption, which itself can be a very traumatic experience.” Sharma described the parental notification law as a form of torture, serving no purpose other than to cause young women pain and humiliation. “The law is not doing anything but scaring young women, and making them anxious, making them gather funds that they don’t have, making them talk to a series of strangers and disclose things that are private,” said Sharma. She paused on the absurdity of it. “What is that? Needlessly harming someone. These laws are supposed to be because we care about young women, they need more protection, they are more vulnerable. The problem is that this law is harming them, it’s not protecting them. There is a special harm in forcing someone to remain pregnant and give birth.”For all the pain it causes, the law offers young women nothing in return—no countervailing benefits. The complaint alleges the Colorado law does not ensure that young women confide in a parent, nor does it provide any information or support relevant to the decision about whether to continue the pregnancy or not. Instead, the law hands the decision-making power to the least qualified person. “Judges are not in a better position than physicians to know if a young person understands what they’re getting into and what this choice will involve,” said Sharma. An abortion-rights protest before the Fourth of July Parade in Bloomington, Indiana, on July 4, 2022. Doctors, on the other hand, are trained to obtain informed consent and screen patients for coercion and abuse. They are ethically obligated to encourage minors to consult with a trusted adult about their decision. The indictment of the law goes even further. Medical research shows that abortion is much safer and less burdensome to the body and the mind than continuing a pregnancy and going through labor and childbirth, especially for young women, who face heightened risks of serious pregnancy-related complications. The complaint details these risks and burdens that are well documented: “labor can last anywhere from hours to days, be extremely painful, and involve tearing leading to incontinence and sexual dysfunction” as well as “profuse bleeding.” Childbirth can include interventions involving life-altering consequences and posing far greater medical risks than abortion—such as amniocentesis, the administration of synthetic oxytocin during childbirth and caesarean sections. Childbirth can be mentally taxing and even traumatic. The U.S. has theDespite these risks, Colorado does not require parental or judicial involvement in any reproductive healthcare decision except for one of the safest: the decision to have an abortion. The state has defended itself against Dr. Cohen’s challenge to the parental notification requirement by filing a motion to dismiss the case. The motion has been fully briefed and both parties are now awaiting the court’s decision. As Republicans are ever more relentlessly attacking abortion rights in states across the country, women’s rights advocates rediscovering underutilized state equal rights amendments and using newly passed abortion rights amendment to challeenge longstanding barriers to abortion in blue states. “Don’t think of these laws differently than you think of other abortion restrictions. The top line is the same. They are intended to harm people, and they don’t have countervailing benefits,” said Sharma. “I know we all want parents and children to talk to each other. We all want strong families. I genuinely believe that. The problem is that these laws don’t do that. They are just another ban, and on a particularly vulnerable population.”by the states in 2020—but illegitimately blocked by the Trump administration the same year—advocates are building important caselaw to support the principle that abortion restrictionsAbortion Pills: U.S. History and Politics The SAVE Act Is Designed to Erode Access to the Ballot. The Woman Who Built the Largest Voter Protection Operation in History Is Not Surprised.
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