Illinois Supreme Court upholds Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995
Our panel of leading appellate attorneys review Thursday's Illinois Supreme Court opinions in the civil case The Hope Clinic for Women, Ltd., v. Flores and the criminal case People v. Lacy.
CIVIL
The Hope Clinic for Women, Ltd., v. Flores
By Alyssa M. Reiter, Williams, Montgomery & John Ltd.
The Illinois Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 (generally, but with certain exceptions, prohibiting a physician from performing an abortion upon an unemancipated minor unless notice is given to an adult family member) against challenges that it is facially invalid, violating the privacy, due process, equal protection, and gender equality clauses of the Illinois Constitution of 1970.
The parties agreed that a right to abortion exists under the Illinois Constitution but disputed whether that right arose from the privacy clause (which is in the state constitution but not the federal constitution) or from the due process clause.
The Court reviewed the history of the privacy clause and determined that any right to abortion in Illinois “is clearly not grounded in the privacy clause of our state constitution.”