Nothing good is likely to come of this.
The Texas Supreme Court is reconsidering rules that allow Texans under 18 to obtain abortions without parental consent in light of the state’s soon-to-take-effect abortion ban.
Chief Justice Nathan Hecht asked an advisory committee to make a recommendation on the matter in an Aug. 1 letter obtained by Hearst Newspapers, asking the committee to “conclude its work” at a meeting next week on Aug. 19.
A spokeswoman for the high court explained that the justices believe the new law, and a landmark June ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court overturning federal protections on abortion, have “raised questions about whether the parental-notification rules are still consistent with Texas law.”
“The court asked the advisory committee to study the issues raised in the referral letter and make recommendations, which it does almost any time rule changes are contemplated,” said the spokeswoman, Amy Starnes.
Current Texas rules require abortion patients under 18 to notify their parents when they are seeking an abortion and receive their permission. But the rules also allow the teen to seek permission from a judge instead.
The number of minors who have been able to access that legal process ground to a near-halt after Texas imposed its six-week abortion ban in September 2021 — in August, 20 minors were able to get their cases before judges, state data shows. By October, once the ban was in place, that number dwindled to just two.
Still, attorneys who represent the young “Jane Does,” named as such in court filings for confidentiality purposes, say there will still be a need for the process, known as judicial bypass, even once the trigger ban takes effect on Aug. 25.
Though the trigger ban includes no exception for rape or incest, it does include an exception for pregnancies that risk death or “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” The exception has spurred debate statewide, especially among doctors and hospital groups concerned that it is too vague and creates legal liability for them.
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Blake Rocap, legal director at Jane’s Due Process, a nonprofit that helps represent pregnant minors in Texas, said there will still be a need for the bypass process for children whose physicians determine their pregnancies qualify for that health exception.
“You can see a possibility where a minor patient may have a pregnancy that is causing their health to deteriorate, causing a lot of risk or is dangerous for them in the future,” Rocap said. “Let’s say they’re a really young victim of sexual assault or incest and their body is not able to handle a full-term pregnancy just because they’re not physically big enough … They would need a bypass.”
Rocap added that would be especially important in the case of minors in CPS or foster care who will always need bypass because under Texas law, the state is not allowed to consent to abortion.
Less than 1 percent of abortions, or 31, were performed in 2021 on patients 13 years old or younger, according to data collected by the state health department. A little over 2 percent involved patients under 18, including 226 patients between 14 and 15 years old and 807 between 16 and 17.
I guess I’m not sure what it is that has changed here from the perspective of the judicial bypass process. Abortion is now far more restricted than before for minors, but if a young person qualifies for an abortion under the health exception then I don’t see how the question of whether they need to notify their parents or can be approved by a judge to protect their personal safety is any different. All of this makes my skin crawl and is a reminder why parental notification laws were such a bad idea in the first place – the kind of person who doesn’t want to tell their parents they need an abortion probably has a good reason for that. I have less visceral distrust of the Texas Supreme Court right now than I do of the US Supreme Court, but I don’t have much trust in what they’re doing here. I hope to be proven wrong about that.
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