HELENA, Montana — The Montana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that minors do not need parental permission to get an abortion in the state, consistent with a lower court ruling that the parental consent law violates the state constitution’s privacy clause.
“We conclude that minors, like adults, have fundamental rights to privacy, including reproductive autonomy, and the right to make medical decisions affecting their bodily integrity and health in cooperation with the health care providers of their choice, free from government interference,” Justice Laurie MacKinnon wrote in a unanimous opinion.
The ruling comes as an initiative to ask voters whether they want to protect the right to previable abortion as enshrined in the state constitution will be on Montana’s November ballot. County officials have verified enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot, supporters said. The Secretary of State’s office must certify the general election ballots by Aug. 22.
Congress passed a parental consent law in 2013, but it was blocked by a preliminary injunction agreed to by the then-Attorney General, and a long string of judicial changes, recusals, and retirements delayed a ruling until last year.
In February 2023, a state judge ruled that the law was unconstitutional, citing a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling that said the right to privacy includes the right to terminate a pregnancy before viability by the health care provider of a patient’s choice.
“The Supreme Court’s decision affirms the right to privacy, and we are pleased that the court today upheld the fundamental rights of Montanans,” said Martha Fuller, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, which has challenged the law.
States have argued that the law is necessary to protect minors from sexual harm, to protect the psychological and physical well-being of minors by ensuring that parents have access to monitor complications after an abortion, to protect minors from poor rational decisions, and to protect parents’ rights to direct the care, custody, and control of their children.
The justices disagreed, noting that the state “does not impose comparable restrictions on minors seeking medical or surgical treatment related to pregnancy or children.”
Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte said he was “disturbed and disappointed” by the ruling, which “states that parents do not have a fundamental right to oversee the medical care of their young daughters.”
According to the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that advocates for sexual and reproductive health care rights, 36 states require parental involvement in minors’ abortion decisions. Some states require parental notification, while others require consent as well.
