Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, Jan Whitefield, M.d., and Susan Lemagie, M.d., Appellants And…

Summary

The Alaska Supreme Court held that the Parental Notification Law violates the Alaska Constitution’s equal protection guarantee because it burdens the fundamental reproductive-choice rights of minors seeking abortions while imposing no comparable burden on minors carrying pregnancies to term. The State’s asserted interests in parental involvement, protecting minors’ health, and preventing sexual abuse applied equally to both groups and therefore did not justify the discriminatory classification. The court did not decide the separate privacy challenge or the cross-appeals because the equal protection ruling made those issues unnecessary. Justice Stowers, dissenting, would have upheld the law based on the groups’ asserted dissimilarity, the judicial bypass procedure, and parental and state interests.