Nix parent notification law for abortion
In a few weeks, an unknown number of the female members of those couples will wake up to realize they feel a little different, maybe nauseated, maybe overly tired. They'll trot over to the nearest pharmacy and buy a pregnancy test.
For some of those women, a positive test result will result in feelings of overwhelming joy.
For others, it will result in feelings of overwhelming worry.
Those women will spend the next few weeks trying to decide what to do about this unplanned pregnancy. About 60 percent of them will decide to proceed with the pregnancy. The vast majority of those women will choose to keep the child. A few will choose to allow another person or couple to raise the child as their own.
But about 40 percent will choose to end the unwanted pregnancy. Most of them will have the abortion during their first trimester. When it's over, the vast majority of them will feel relieved.
At least that's how things work here in Illinois, the bluest of blue states.
With a pro-choice governor, a Legislature controlled by the Democratic Party and a branch of the American Civil Liberties Union that has successfully challenged every attempt to place legal limits on abortion in Illinois, things are not likely to change soon, at least for women 18 or older.
Unlike women in most other states, we have the right to choose what to do about an unwanted pregnancy with relatively few invasions of our privacy or roadblocks in our way.
But for teens, the outlook is less certain.
Any girl who finds herself pregnant in the wake of this Valentine's Day still will have the right to seek an abortion in Illinois without telling her parents (although the vast majority of these girls will tell a parent anyway).
That may not be the case for long.
A state law passed in 1995 that would require a girl to notify a parent before seeking an abortion has been resurrected. That law allows a girl who feels she cannot tell a parent for whatever reason to seek a judge's permission to have the procedure anyway.
The law never went into effect.
The ACLU of Illinois challenged it and a federal judge enjoined the law until the Illinois Supreme Court issued rules governing its implementation, something the court refused to do for 11 years. Those rules finally were issued last September by a more conservative Illinois Supreme Court.
Last week, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan went back into federal court and said the state's 102 counties don't yet have the procedures in place to protect the privacy of girls or to ensure them a speedy legal resolution. The federal judge told to her to come back when the courts are ready.
It's unclear how long that could take. And even if the procedures are developed, the law still may not take effect any time soon. The ACLU plans to seek another injunction while it presses its claims that the Illinois law is unconstitutional.
"The reality is that the ball is not in our court right now, but it will be again," said Lorie Chaiten, director of the reproductive rights project for the ACLU of Illinois.
Meanwhile, a bill that would take the edge off the parental notification law is winding its way through the Illinois Legislature. The bill would allow a teen who doesn't believe she can confide in her parents to instead tell another responsible adult about her plans to have an abortion. In the saddest of all cases, a teen who has no trusted adult in her life still would have the option of seeking permission from a judge.
If the goal of the parental notification law is to ensure a girl has sufficient support in her time of need -- and not simply a way to keep her from getting an abortion -- this bill should speed its way through the Legislature.