US supreme court dodges major abortion ruling

The US Supreme Court steered clear of a major ruling on abortion today, instead giving the northeastern state of New Hampshire a chance to save its parental notification law.

Justices, in a rare unanimous abortion ruling, agreed that the New Hampshire law could make it too hard for some ill children under 18 to get an abortion, but at the same time they were hesitant about stepping in to fix the 2003 statute.

They told a lower court to reconsider whether the entire law is unconstitutional.

“Making distinctions in a murky constitutional context, or where line-drawing is inherently complex, may call for a ‘far more serious invasion of the legislative domain’ than we ought to undertake,” retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the court.

The New Hampshire case had been expected to be much closer at the high court.

Instead, justices found consensus on narrow grounds, that a lower court went too far by permanently blocking the law that requires a parent to be told before a minor daughter ends her pregnancy.

Civil rights groups predicted that the appeals court would again strike down the law.

“It tells politicians that they must include protections for women’s health and safety when they pass abortion laws,” said Jennifer Dalven, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

O’Connor, a key swing voter at the court on abortion rights, last year announced plans to retire and she will step down soon if the Senate confirms nominee Samuel Alito.

Alito was questioned extensively last week during his Senate confirmation hearing about his views on abortion, including the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that declared abortion a fundamental constitutional right. He steadfastly refused to agree with assertions by Democrats that Roe v. Wade is “settled law.”

Abortion is among the contentious social issues that reach the highest US court. The panel’s rulings are closely monitored to see if they reflect a shift away from Roe v. Wade.

That scrutiny has intensified now that Alito, a conservative judge and President George Bush’s nominee to replace O’Connor, will almost certainly be confirmed by the US Senate.

Abortion rights advocates fear he will tip the balance of the court and vote to weaken, if not overturn, the Roe decision.

O’Connor, who supports Roe, made clear that the court was not going to break new ground in what may be her final days on the bench. “We do not revisit our abortion precedents today,” she wrote in the opening of the brief opinion.

David Garrow, a Supreme Court historian at Cambridge University, said the decision “can be read as another step toward a long-term middle-ground truce, or at least stalemate.”

The case returns to the 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which had ruled that the law was unconstitutional.

The statute requires that a parent be informed 48 hours before a minor child has an abortion but makes no exception for a medical emergency that threatens the youth’s health.

Phyllis Woods, a former state representative from New Hampshire, who was a main sponsor of the bill, said she was pleased by the ruling but concerned that the appeals court might require a broad health exception.

“Our concern has always been that a blanket health exception opens the door and really negates the whole purpose of the bill,” Woods said.