Montana's top court strikes down parental consent law for minors seeking abortion

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) -Montana's highest court on Wednesday ruled that a law requiring minors to get parental consent when seeking an abortion violated the state's constitution, upholding a legal challenge by Planned Parenthood.

Justice Laurie McKinnon wrote for the unanimous court that "a minor's right to control her reproductive decisions is among the most fundamental of the rights she possesses" and that Montana had not shown that the law was justified to protect minors.

"This decision affirms the right to privacy and we are pleased that the Court upheld the fundamental rights of Montanans today," Martha Fuller, president of Planned Parenthood of Montana, said in a statement.

Montana's attorney general, Austin Knudsen, a Republican, harshly criticized the ruling.

"Today's decision further proves how radical and out-of-touch the Montana Supreme Court is with their constituents," Chase Scheuer, press secretary for Knudsen, said in a statement.

The law was passed in 2013, but has never taken effect because it was challenged immediately by Planned Parenthood. It allows a minor seeking an abortion to get a waiver from a judge instead of her parents' consent.

Wednesday's decision does not affect a separate law, also passed in 2013, requiring parents to be notified when their minor child seeks an abortion. That law is subject to a separate legal challenge.

Montana's Supreme Court has recognized a right to abortion under the state constitution since 1999. Abortion has remained legal in the Republican-controlled Western state until fetal viability, usually around 24 weeks, even as other Republican states have banned or restricted it in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling eliminating a nationwide right to abortion.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)