A New Hampshire law requiring parental notification for minors to obtain abortions should be upheld as constitutional, said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the state's Catholic bishop in a brief to the Supreme Court.

In an amicus or friend-of-the-court brief filed Aug. 4, the bishops argued that the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals misread the Supreme Court's previous rulings when it held that the 2003 law failed the constitutionality standard because it did not allow underage pregnant women to bypass the notification requirement for health reasons. Bishop John B. McCormack, who heads the statewide Diocese of Manchester, N.H., submitted the brief along with the USCCB.

The Supreme Court will hear the case, Ayotte vs. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, Nov. 30.

The law, which was blocked from taking effect by the legal challenge, would require minors to notify at least one parent of their intentions 48 hours before they could have abortions. Exceptions would be allowed if the young woman's life was endangered or if she was able to obtain permission from a judge to bypass the notification requirement.

The lower courts said the exception in the case of life-threatening complications was not sufficient, and that some minors might need an immediate abortion because of possible health problems that were not life-threatening.

The brief from the bishops argued that the Constitution has no provision requiring a "health" exception to such a regulation and that in the more than 30 years that abortion has been legal nationwide the court "has never invalidated a parental notice statute based on the absence of a 'medical emergency' exception, let alone a more general 'health' exception."

It argued that such exemptions would put abortion practitioners in the position of deciding whether a teenage patient should notify a parent. Such practitioners not only would have a financial interest in performing an abortion, but they would be "typically a doctor with no previous experience treating the patient and no knowledge of her medical history," said the brief written by Mark Chopko, general counsel to the USCCB, and Michael Moses, associate general counsel.

Parental involvement is critical to ensuring both the young woman's health interests are protected and her decision about an abortion is freely made and not the result of coercion or duress, the brief said.

"High abortion rates are generally associated not with freedom, but with 'lack of control over one's life' and 'lack of financial and social resources,'" said the brief. It cited studies by groups including those that support legal abortion which found that many women feel pressured by the baby's father to have an abortion.

"These concerns are heightened for adolescents who, as this court has recently observed, are more susceptible than adults to 'outside pressure' and other 'negative influences,' and more likely than adults to make decisions that are 'impetuous and ill-considered,'" the bishops' brief said. That phrasing about adolescents' influences was drawn from the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year that found the death penalty unconstitutional for minors.

The brief raised a concern that teens who do not discuss the ramifications of abortion with their parents might have psychological trouble soon afterward and health problems later in life that could have been have avoided if they had talked to their parents.

"Among women who have negative psychological reactions to abortion after undergoing the procedure, minors are more likely than older patients to report being misinformed at the time of the abortion, to feeling forced or pressured into having the abortion and being dissatisfied with the decision to undergo an abortion," it said, citing another study.

"This court is not, and surely does not wish to be, the nation's medical board on abortion," said the bishops' brief. "Yet that is precisely what respondents invite."

After deciding in 1992 in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey that state legislatures should have the authority to regulate abortion, the USCCB brief said, the court should use the New Hampshire case to "reject the attempt to portray parental notice laws as creating a conflict between the rights of parents and the interests of their children."

"If a family is to retain its vitality and integrity when confronted with the reality of an unexpected pregnancy, parents must, at a minimum, be permitted to reflect upon and discuss with their pregnant adolescent daughter the decision whether to carry her child to term or to undergo an abortion," it said.

---CNS