Voters should have the last say on parental rights

Some things just don’t make sense.

A parent’s permission is required before our children join a sports team, watch an R-rated movie or even lift weights at a gym. If our children need to take an aspirin in school or receive medical treatment, a parent must give consent. In order for our children to get a vaccination, attend a field trip, leave school early, take a school survey or open a bank account, they must have a parent’s permission. But, today in Alaska, a girl as young as 14 or 15 can obtain the serious medical procedure of abortion without parental knowledge or consent. Where is the rationale?

This bizarre contradiction is the result of a court decision two years ago this month. The Alaska Supreme Court dealt a blow to the rights of parents when it denied a petition from the Attorney General urging the court to reconsider its decision in the case Planned Parenthood vs. Alaska.

In that ruling a narrow majority of three justices on the Supreme Court struck down Alaska’s Parental Consent Act (PCA), a law requiring parental consent before a minor can obtain an abortion.

This decision undermines the rights of parents and deprives teenagers of parental guidance in one of the most difficult decisions they may ever make. I supported the PCA when it passed the Legislature in 1997 and I remain supportive.

Justice Walter Carpeneti eloquently expressed the rationale for parental consent in his dissenting opinion in the Planned Parenthood case:

“The notion that parental consent laws further the state interest of protecting minors from their immaturity is neither novel nor surprising. As a matter of law society demands much of parents; it is expected that they will assist their children in making proper decisions until those children reach adulthood.”

Our children need parental permission for even simple things. There is simply no defensible reason for carving out an exemption for abortion, which has far more serious implications than many of the other examples cited.

Although the court struck down the consent requirement, the majority in the Planned Parenthood case left open a small crack in the door: They suggested they might uphold a law requiring parental notification, as distinct from consent, before an abortion is performed on a minor.

A group of Alaska citizens decided to take the court at its word and began circulating a petition this past summer to collect the nearly 33,000 signatures from registered voters required to place the issue of parental notification on a future statewide election ballot. If sponsors are successful in collecting the required number of valid signatures, Alaska voters will have the chance to decide this issue for themselves.

While parental notification may not be the best tool to protect the rights of parents, and the health of minors, it is far superior to what we have now, state sanctioned secrecy involving abortion decisions of immature teenagers.

Our ultimate goal should be to have an enforceable consent law in Alaska. But a notification law is at least a step in the right direction and will at least allow parents the opportunity to provide crucial counsel and guidance to their young daughters.

My wife Sandy and I have already signed the parental notice initiative petition. We urge other Alaskans to defend parental rights and protect the health of our teenage daughters by signing the petition as well.

Parenting is complicated enough without more legal obstacles to hinder us from doing the best job we can. In part, the parental notification initiative removes those obstacles and deserves our support.

Sean Parnell is governor of Alaska.