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The
Illinois Appellate Court on Friday reversed and remanded the decision of the Cook
County Circuit Court upholding the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion
Act of 1995. The appellate court’s decision did not resolve the
ultimate legal issues raised in the case, even though those issues were
fully briefed in both the trial and appellate courts.
“We strongly disagree with the Illinois Appellate Court’s decision to
send this back to the trial court without deciding the legal issues
involved,” says Peter Breen, executive director and legal counsel at the Thomas More Society. “This decision is flawed in so many respects that
further trial proceedings would be pointless. Only a prompt review by
the Illinois Supreme Court can correct the injustice of this law
languishing in legal limbo.”
The Thomas More Society represented over 20 state’s attorneys as
“friends of the court” in support of the parental notice law in the
appellate court and has sought to intervene on behalf of two downstate
state’s attorneys in support of the parental notice law in both federal
and state courts.
In 1995, the Illinois General Assembly enacted the Parental Notice of
Abortion Act, which requires a parent or guardian to be notified 48
hours before a child under 18 has an abortion. In 1996, a federal
district court permanently enjoined the act due to the lack of a
confidential appeal and bypass rule. In 2006, the Illinois Supreme Court
issued the required appeal and bypass rule, but the parental notice law
still has not gone into effect due to litigation in federal and state
courts by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Since 1995, over 50,000 abortions have been performed on Illinois
minors. Illinois is the only Midwest state without a parental notice or
consent law in effect, and so, over the same period, thousands more
abortions were performed in Illinois on non-resident minors, who were
allowed to escape or even evade their own states’ parental notice or
consent laws.
