Planned Parenthood has just filed a lawsuit in Nevada that seeks to allow the organization to keep teenagers’ abortions hidden from their parents.
For decades, Nevada’s Republican-led legislature has fought to enforce a law requiring that parents be notified before an abortion is performed on a minor.
Now, just as the law is on the verge of enforcement, a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood Mar Monte aims to keep the law in legal limbo, claiming that it violates the state’s constitution.
The law, passed in 1985, was immediately met with resistance.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals placed it on permanent hold, blocking its enforcement for years.
However, the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned the nationwide right to abortion, revived the issue, paving the way for the law’s potential enforcement.
Despite this, Planned Parenthood is once again trying to keep the law from going into effect by using the state’s newly passed constitutional amendments as a basis for its case.
In the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood argues that requiring parental notification is an extreme measure, claiming it delays access to abortion and increases the risk of harm to underage girls.
They suggest that alternatives, such as allowing minors to rely on other “trusted adults” to inform them, are just as effective as involving parents.
“The Parental Notification and Judicial Bypass provisions’ requirements, by operation, will delay abortion access for patients subjected to the statute, resulting in increased medical risks, physical and psychological harms,” the lawsuit asserts.
The organization argues that these delays could force minors to carry pregnancies to term against their will, which, they claim, would be a violation of their rights.
Ironically, while Planned Parenthood argues that the law will cause harm to minors, it simultaneously claims that abortion itself, even when done through the use of the Mifepristone pill, is a “very safe procedure” with “exceedingly low rates of complications.”
But the reality is that abortion, whether surgical or chemical, has well-documented physical, emotional, and mental consequences for women.
For minors, whose bodies and minds are still developing, the risks are even higher.
Research shows that parental notification laws reduce teen suicide rates and encourage minors to seek the support of their families during difficult times.
This is not the first time abortion providers have used state constitutions to challenge laws that protect parental rights.
In Missouri, pro-abortion activists promised that parental consent laws would remain untouched, only to later use the state’s new abortion amendment to try to undermine those very protections.
As Nevada’s legal battle continues, it’s clear that abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood are more focused on maintaining their ability to perform abortions on underage girls without parental knowledge than they are on the well-being of those minors.
The fight to preserve parental rights in Nevada, as in other states, is far from over, and it’s clear that those who seek to protect children from the harms of abortion are not backing down.
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