7th Circuit Lifts Injunction Against Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit yesterday dissolved a federal injuntion against enforcement of the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act, thus entitling Illinois parents, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, to notification before their minor daughters obtain an abortion.

The broader, perhaps nationwide significance of the decision may be the legal strategy devised by Thomas More Society counsel Paul Linton to lift federal injunctions, which have frustrated numerous attempts to legislate on culture war issues, including abortion and homosexuality, nationwide. Legal limbo, accordingly, may be a shrinking component of the Leftist arsenal in the future.

The Thomas More Society issued this announcement yesterday.

Chicago, IL -- Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit dissolved the federal injunction against the Illinois Parental Notice of Abortion Act. As a direct result of the court's decision (Zbaraz v. Hartigan), Illinois parents will be entitled, for the first time since Roe v. Wade was decided, to notification before their minor daughters are taken for abortions. The decision is the culmination of four years work by the Thomas More Society, particularly TMS Special Counsel Paul Linton, who devised the legal strategy which ultimately led to the lifting of the injunction.

"This is an incredible victory for Illinois parents and their children," said Peter Breen, Executive Director and Legal Counsel of the Thomas More Society. "Parental involvement laws enjoy overwhelming public support. These laws promote the integrity of the family and ensure that parents are consulted so that their children are not forced into an abortion decision. A wealth of social science data indicates that parental involvement laws lead to lower pregnancy rates, out-of-wedlock births and abortions."

The Parental Notice Act has been in legal limbo for more than ten years because of the Illinois Supreme Court's refusal to issue the rules necessary to make the Act effective. Since the passage of the Act in 1995, over 50,000 Illinois minors have obtained abortions, more than 4,000 of whom were 14 years old or younger, without any requirement to notify their parents beforehand.

Following Linton's legal strategy, representatives of pro-life organizations met with DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett in the spring of 2005 to ask him to petition the Illinois Supreme Court to adopt the rules required by the 1995 Act. Birkett agreed and filed his petition in June 2006.

On September 7, 2006, the Thomas More Society, representing a range of interested organizations, filed a supplemental petition with the state supreme court. Less than two weeks later, the Illinois Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice Bob Thomas, unanimously adopted Supreme Court Rule 303A.

After various delays, Attorney General Lisa Madigan returned to federal court in March 2007 and petitioned Judge David Coar to lift the permanent injunction which had been issued eleven years earlier. After Judge Coar denied the petition, the Thomas More Society intervened in the case on behalf of State's Attorneys Stu Umholtz (Republican, Tazewell County) and Ed Deters (Democrat, Effingham County) to press an appeal against the injunction.

HHS Nominee is Good News for Post-Viability and Teen Abortion Markets

The abortion industry can probably look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship with the Obama administration if the Senate confirms Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Sebelius will oversee an annual budget of $821 billion.

Sebelius vetoed bills in 2003 and 2005 that would have mandated the safety of abortion centers in Kansas, which were allegedly operating under medically dangerous conditions. In 2008 she vetoed a measure to enforce the state's parental notice law.

More recently, she vetoed a bill that would have required those doing late-term abortions to provide an explicit medical reason.

A nominal Catholic, she also vetoed another bill that would have required those doing post-viability abortions (that is, abortions after the point when the child is developed enough to breathe on its own outside the womb) to report the diagnosis that led to the abortion.

According to the Family Research Council, Gov. Sebelius received significant political donations from a late-term abortionist and used the Governor's Mansion to entertain both this man and the nation's leading partial-birth abortionist. Post-viability abortionists are expected to provide robust financial support for President Obama's 2012 reelection bid.

Abortion opponents have denounced the appointment as "divisive."

Parental Involvement Threatens Cash Flow

According to a Family Research Council study, state-level parental involvement laws could begin to drain the troubled waters in which abortion marketers fish for their clientele. If the figures in this FRC press release are correct, the abortion industry is already suffering significant financial damage in the studied locales, and enactment of parental involvement laws in the larger markets might financially cripple the national abortion industry.

Family Research Council Releases New Study on Successful Abortion Reduction Legislation

Washington, D.C. - Today, Family Research Council released a study demonstrating which state level parental involvement laws are most effective in reducing abortions among minors. The study is the first comprehensive analysis of minor abortion data from nearly all 50 states between 1985 and 1999. Overall, the findings indicate that when a state enacts a parental involvement law, the abortion rate falls by an average of approximately 13.6 percent. The study is available on www.frc.org

Family Research Council Fellow and study author Dr. Michael J. New, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama, had this to say:

"This study is the first of its kind to compare different types of parental involvement laws. The study finds that more protective parental involvement laws result in even larger declines in abortion rates. Laws that require parental consent instead of parental notification reduce the minor abortion rate by about 19 percent. Furthermore, laws that mandate the involvement of two parents, instead of just one parent, reduce the in-state abortion rate by approximately 31 percent.
Minnesota and Mississippi laws are among the most effective in reducing abortion rates among minors.

"This study shows that parental involvement laws are an important causal factor in this decline in the overall abortion rate among minors in the United States, which has fallen by close to fifty percent between 1985 and 1999. Currently about 36 states have a parental involvement law on the books, but some are more effective than others in their ability to reduce the incidence of abortion."

"The overwhelming evidence in support of parental involvement laws should be a boon to legislators everywhere."