U.S. House of Representatives

Committee on the Judiciary

Henry J. Hyde, Chairman www.house.gov/judiciary

For immediate release June 23, 1999

Contact: Sam Stratman/Michael Connolly (202) 225-2492

Judiciary Committee to Consider

H.R. 1218 "Child Custody Protection Act"

The Child Custody Protection Act (CCPA), introduced on March 23, 1999 by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (with currently 128 cosponsors), would make it a federal offense to transport a minor across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion in contravention of a state law requiring parental involvement in a minor's decision to obtain an abortion (or judicial waiver of such a requirement). A violation of the Act is a Class One misdemeanor, carrying a fine of up to $100,000 and incarceration of up to one year.

Currently, more than 20 states require the consent or notification of at least one parent (or court authorization) before a minor can obtain an abortion.⁽¹⁾ These parental involvement laws enjoy overwhelming public support.⁽²⁾

Nevertheless, these laws are frequently circumvented by adults who transport minors to abortion providers in states that do not have parental notification or consent laws. The CCPA would curb the interstate circumvention of these laws, thereby protecting the rights of parents and the interests of vulnerable minors. The CCPA is not a federal parental involvement law; it merely ensures that these state laws are not evaded through interstate activity. The CCPA does not encroach on state powers, but rather reinforces state powers.

During the 105^th Congress, CCPA (H.R. 3682) passed in the House by a vote of 276 to 150. The Senate took no final action upon the legislation. During the current Congress, the Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing on CCPA on May 27, 1999. At that hearing the Subcommittee received testimony regarding the need for the CCPA, the legal effects of the bill, and its constitutionality. The Subcommittee held a markup of CCPA on June 8, 1999. The bill was reported favorably out of the Subcommittee, without amendment, by a vote of 6-2.

II. The Federal Role in Protecting Minors From Interstate Transportation

in Circumvention of State Parental Involvement Laws

The federal government has long exercised its interstate commerce authority to prohibit interstate activity harmful to minors and their families. In 1910, Congress used its Commerce Clause power to enact the Mann Act, which prohibits the interstate transportation of women or minors for purposes of "prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose." The Supreme Court upheld the enactment of this law as a constitutional exercise of Congress' power over transportation among the several states. The Court reasoned that if men and women employ interstate transportation to facilitate a wrong, then their right to interstate travel can be restricted.⁽³⁾

With respect to state laws requiring parental or judicial involvement in minors' abortion decisions, federal legislation is warranted due to the scope of the practice of avoiding such laws and the profound physical and psychological risks of an abortion to a minor. As the Supreme Court has observed, "[t]he medical, emotional, and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious and can be lasting; this is particularly so when the patient is immature."⁽⁴⁾

The taking of an underage girl out of state for an abortion by someone who may have no knowledge of her prior medical or psychological history poses many dangers which could be avoided through the involvement of her parents. A parent would be able to alert the abortionist to any known allergies to anesthesia and medication, provide pertinent information from the girl's prior medical or psychological history, and provide authorization for the release of pertinent data from family physicians.

Moreover, in light of the dangers involved with the abortion procedure itself, the fact that an adult would take a minor out of state for such a procedure without notifying her parents is particularly troubling. Hemorrhaging, perforation or ripping of the uterus, anesthesia complications, and even death are all risks of abortion procedures. Surely parents have a right to know when their child seeks to undergo a procedure entailing such risks. Unlike an abortion clinic counselor or another adult, who may have only a transitory role in the minor's life, it is the parents who play a permanent role and who are best able to fully attend to the child's well-being even beyond the abortion.

Once the girl returns home, she may suffer physical complications from the abortion. If the parents are aware that their daughter has had an abortion, their knowledge could be critical to ensuring that the young girl receives treatment in a timely fashion with the onset of symptoms. If the parents remain ignorant of the abortion, however, they will be unable to provide the benefit of their knowledge and expertise to their young daughter in a timely manner if complications develop.

This position has the support of Dr. Bruce A. Lucero, an abortionist who performed some 45,000 abortions over the course of his career. Dr. Lucero, who supported the CCPA last year, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times about his own experience with minor girls seeking abortions. "In almost all cases," Dr. Lucero wrote, "the only reason that a teen-age girl doesn't want to tell her parents about her pregnancy is that she feels ashamed and doesn't want to let her parents down."⁽⁵⁾ However, according to Dr. Lucero, "parents are usually the ones who can best help their teen-ager consider her options. And whatever the girl's decision, parents can provide the necessary emotional support and financial assistance."⁽⁶⁾ Moreover, Dr. Lucero explained that "patients who receive abortions at out-of-state clinics frequently do not return for follow-up care, which can lead to dangerous complications. And a teen-ager who has an abortion across state lines without her parents' knowledge is even more unlikely to tell them that she is having complications."⁽⁷⁾

The long-term physical consequences of abortion are well known, including, as the Supreme Court has recognized, "an increased risk of complication in subsequent pregnancies."⁽⁸⁾ The effects of an abortion decision may remain with an adolescent for the rest of her life. That is all the more reason that her parents' right to be involved should not be usurped by another adult surreptitiously taking her out of state.

Young adolescent girls are particularly at risk of certain detrimental medical consequences from an abortion. For instance, there is a greater risk of cervical injury associated with suction-curettage abortions (at 12 weeks' gestation or earlier) performed on girls 17 or younger.⁽⁹⁾ Cervical injury is of serious concern because it may predispose the young girl to adverse outcomes in future pregnancies. Girls 17 or younger also face a two and a half times greater risk of acquiring endometriosis following an abortion than do women 20-29 years old.⁽¹⁰⁾

In short, the physical and psychological risks of abortions to minors are great, and laws requiring parental involvement in such abortions (subject to judicial bypass procedures) reduce that risk. The widespread practice of avoiding such laws through interstate commerce may be prevented only through federal legislation.

III. The Prevalence of This Interstate Activity

There is no serious dispute regarding the fact that the transportation of minors across state lines in order to obtain abortions is both a widespread and frequent practice. Even groups opposed to this bill acknowledge that large numbers of minors are transported across state lines to obtain abortions, in many cases by adults other than their parents. In 1995, Kathryn Kolbert, then an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (a national pro-abortion legal defense organization) asserted that thousands of adults are helping minors cross state lines to get abortions in states whose parental involvement requirements are less stringent or non-existent: "There are thousands of minors who cross state lines for an abortion every year and who need the assistance of adults to do that."⁽¹¹⁾ Only Congress, with its constitutional authority to regulate interstate commerce, can curb this flagrant disregard of state laws.

A. Pennsylvania

Since Pennsylvania's current parental consent law took effect in March of 1994, news reports have repeatedly maintained that many Pennsylvania teenagers are going out of state to New Jersey and New York to obtain abortions. In fact, in 1995 the New York Times reported that "Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia has a list of clinics, from New York to Baltimore, to which they will refer teen-agers, according to the organization's executive director, Joan Coombs."⁽¹²⁾ Moreover, the Times gave accounts of clinics that had seen an increase in patients from Pennsylvania.⁽¹³⁾ One clinic, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, reported seeing a threefold increase in Pennsylvania teenagers coming for abortions.⁽¹⁴⁾ Likewise, a clinic in Queens, New York reported that it was not unusual to see Pennsylvania teenagers as patients in 1995, though earlier it had been rare.⁽¹⁵⁾

In the period just prior to the Pennsylvania law taking effect, efforts were underway to make it easier for teenagers to go out of state for abortions. For instance, Newsday reported that "[c]ounselors and activists are meeting to plot strategy and printing maps with directions to clinics in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Washington, D.C., where teenagers can still get abortions without parental consent. . . . 'We will definitely be encouraging teenagers to go out of state,' said Shawn Towey, director of the Greater Philadelphia Woman's Medical Fund, a nonprofit organization that gives money to women who can't afford to pay for their abortions."⁽¹⁶⁾

Moreover, some abortion clinics in nearby states, such as New Jersey and Maryland, use the lack of parental involvement requirements in their own states as a "selling point" in advertising directed at minors in Pennsylvania. For example, the March 1999-February 2000 Yellow Pages for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania contain advertisements from three New Jersey abortionists declaring "No Parental Consent Required." A Rockville, Maryland abortionist ran a similar advertisement in the May 1998-April 1999 Yellow Pages for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Such advertisements have appeared in telephone directories for Wilkes-Barre and Dallas, Scranton, Clarks Summit, and Carbondale, Bethlehem, Allentown, York, and Erie.

B. Missouri

In 1997, a study in the American Journal of Public Health reported that a leading abortion provider in Missouri refers minors out of state for abortions if the girls do not want to involve their parents. Reproductive Health Services, which performs over half of the abortions performed in Missouri, refers minors to the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois. Research reveals that based on the available data the odds of a minor traveling out of state for an abortion increased by over 50 percent when Missouri's parental consent law went into effect. Furthermore, compared to older women, underage girls were significantly more likely to travel out of state to have their abortions.⁽¹⁷⁾

A 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch news report confirms that the Hope Clinic in Illinois continues to attract underage girls seeking abortions without parental involvement.⁽¹⁸⁾ A clinic counselor estimates that she sees two girls each week seeking to avoid their home state's parental involvement law. One recent example was a 16 year-old girl from Missouri who had called abortion clinics in St. Louis and learned that parental consent was required before a minor could obtain an abortion. According to the report, the Hope Clinic performed 3,200 abortions on out-of-state women last year, and the clinic's executive director estimates that that number is 45% of the total abortions performed at the clinic. The executive director also estimates that 13% of the clinic's clients are minors.

C. Massachusetts

Massachusetts has also seen an increase in out-of-state abortions performed on its teenage residents since the state's parental consent law went into effect in April of 1981, according to a published study and anecdotal information.⁽¹⁹⁾ A 1986 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that in the four months prior to implementation of the parental consent law, an average of 29 Massachusetts minors obtained out-of-state abortions each month (in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York -- data for Maine was not available).⁽²⁰⁾ After the parental consent law was implemented, however, the average jumped to between 90 and 95 out-of-state abortions per month (using data from the five states of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Maine) -- representing one-third of the abortions obtained by Massachusetts' minors.⁽²¹⁾

The study noted that due to what the authors described as "astute marketing," one abortion clinic in New Hampshire was able to nearly double the monthly average of abortions performed on Massachusetts minors (from 14 in 1981 to 27 in 1982). The abortionist "began advertising in the 1982 Yellow Pages of metropolitan areas along the northern Massachusetts border, stating 'consent for minors not required.'"⁽²²⁾

In April of 1991, the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts estimated that approximately 1,200 Massachusetts minor girls travel out of state for abortions each year, the majority of them to New Hampshire. Planned Parenthood said that surveys of New Hampshire clinics revealed an average of 100 appointments per month by Massachusetts minors.⁽²³⁾

D. Mississippi

A 1995 study of the effect of Mississippi's parental consent law revealed that Mississippi has also experienced an increase in the number of minors traveling out of state for abortion. The study, published in Family Planning Perspectives, compared data for the five months before the parental consent law took effect in June of 1993, with data for the six months after it took effect, and found that "[a]mong Mississippi residents having an abortion in the state, the ratio of minors to older women decreased by 13% . . . . However, this decline was largely offset by a 32% increase in the ratio of minors to older women among Mississippi residents traveling to other states for abortion services."⁽²⁴⁾ Based on the available data, the study suggests that the Mississippi parental consent law appeared to have "little or no effect on the abortion rate among minors but a large increase in the proportion of minors who travel to other states to have abortions, along with a decrease in minors coming from other states to Mississippi."⁽²⁵⁾

E. Virginia

Grace S. Sparks, executive director of the Virginia League of Planned Parenthood, predicted in February of 1997 that if Virginia were to pass a parental notification law, teenagers would travel out of state for abortions. "In every state where they've passed parental notification, . . . there's been an increase in out-of-state abortions," she said, adding, "I suspect that that's what will happen in Virginia, that teen-agers who cannot tell their parents . . . will go out of state and have abortions . . . ."⁽²⁶⁾

Virginia's parental notification law took effect on July 1, 1997. According to a recent article in The Washington Post, initial reports indicate that abortions performed on Virginia minors dropped 20 percent during the first five months that the law was in effect (from 903 abortions during the same time period in 1996 to approximately 700 abortions in 1997).⁽²⁷⁾ The article suggests, however, that Virginia teenagers are traveling to the District of Columbia in order to obtain an abortion without involving their parent. In fact, the National Abortion Federation (NAF), which runs a toll-free national abortion hotline, said that calls from Virginia teenagers seeking information on how to obtain an abortion out-of-state were the largest source of teenage callers seeking out-of-state abortions, at seven to 10 calls per day. NAF hotline operator Amy Schriefer has gone so far as to talk a Richmond area teenage girl through the route (involving a Greyhound bus and the Metro's Red Line) to obtain an abortion in the District of Columbia.

IV. Adult Male Predators and Evasion of Parental Involvement Laws

Importantly, evasion of a state's parental involvement law can sometimes be part of an effort to cover up the commission of a crime. According to Professor Teresa Collett of the South Texas College of Law, who testified before the Subcommittee on the Constitution last year, it is becoming increasingly clear that most underage pregnancies are the result of a lack of sexual restraint by adult men.⁽²⁸⁾ In a study of over 46,000 pregnancies by school-age girls in California, researchers found that "71%, or over 33,000, were fathered by adult post-high-school men whose mean age was 22.6 years, an average of 5 years older than the mothers. . . . Even among junior high school mothers aged 15 or younger, most births are fathered by adult men 6-7 years their senior. Men aged 25 or older father more births among California school-age girls than do boys under age 18."⁽²⁹⁾ Other studies have found that most teenage pregnancies are the result of predatory practices by men who are substantially older.⁽³⁰⁾

Another study reports that 58 percent of the time it is the girl's boyfriend who accompanies her for an abortion when her parents have not been told about the pregnancy.⁽³¹⁾ Obviously, many of these males are vulnerable to statutory rape charges, and thus have a strong incentive to pressure the much younger girl to agree to an abortion without revealing the pregnancy to her parents. Currently, such a male often can evade parental consent requirements by driving his victim across state lines.

V. Constitutional Analysis

A. Constitutional Authority for the Child Custody Protection Act

H.R. 1218 is a regulation of commerce among the several states. Commerce, as that term is used in the Constitution, includes travel whether or not that travel is for reasons of business.⁽³²⁾ To transport another person across state lines is to engage in commerce among the states. There is thus no need to address the scope of Congress' power to regulate activity that is not, but that affects, commerce among the States.⁽³³⁾ Under current Supreme Court jurisprudence, Congress can adopt rules concerning interstate commerce, such as this one, for reasons related primarily to local activity rather than commerce itself.⁽³⁴⁾

The interstate transportation of minors for the purposes of securing an abortion is, therefore, clearly a form of interstate commerce which the Constitution expressly empowers Congress to regulate.⁽³⁵⁾ H.R. 1218 only regulates conduct which involves interstate movement, activity which the national government alone is expressly authorized by the Constitution to address.

B. Roe v. Wade and the Child Custody Protection Act

In Roe v. Wade,⁽³⁶⁾ a majority of the Supreme Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, which provides that no state shall deprive any person of "life, liberty, or property" without due process of law, includes within it a "substantive" component which bars a state from prohibiting abortions under some circumstances. This substantive component of the Due Process Clause, also described in that case as including a "right to privacy," has been held to forbid virtually all state prohibitions on abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy.⁽³⁷⁾ In Planned Parenthood v. Casey,⁽³⁸⁾ the scope of permissible state regulation of abortion and the standards to be applied in evaluating the constitutionality of the regulation were significantly changed. Instead of declaring that the right to seek an abortion was a "fundamental right" requiring a "compelling state interest" in order to be regulated, the new holding was that state regulation of abortion was permissible so long as such regulation did not place an "undue burden" on a woman's exercise of her constitutional rights with regard to abortion.⁽³⁹⁾

H.R. 1218 does not raise any questions concerning the permissible regulation of abortion that are independent of the state laws that it is designed to effectuate. To the extent that a state rule is inconsistent with the Court's doctrine, that rule is ineffective and H.R. 1218 would not make it effective. Therefore, it is unnecessary to ask whether, for example, the "life exception" in Subsection (b) of H.R. 1218 is an adequate exception to a rule regulating abortion or whether the inability to circumvent a state law is an "undue burden." Because constitutional limits on the States' regulatory authority are in effect incorporated into Subsection (a) of the Act, Subsection (b) is in addition to any exceptions required by the Court's doctrine.

C. Constitutionality of Parental Involvement Laws

Following the Court's decision in Roe v. Wade,⁽⁴⁰⁾ many states enacted parental consent or notification statutes requiring minors to notify or seek the consent of their parents before undergoing an abortion. Parental consent laws generally require one or both parents to give actual consent to the minor's decision to have an abortion. Parental notification laws typically require the physician, or in some statutes another health care provider, to notify one or both of the parents of the minor female at some time prior to the abortion.

The Court first considered parental involvement in a minor daughter's abortion in Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth.⁽⁴¹⁾ The Missouri statute gave a minor girl's parent an absolute veto over her decision to have an abortion. The majority, led by Justice Blackmun, found that the veto power was unconstitutional.⁽⁴²⁾ The majority, however, also noted in this case that a state has greater authority to regulate abortion procedures for minor girls than for adult females.⁽⁴³⁾

In Bellotti v. Baird,⁽⁴⁴⁾ the Court remanded a parental consent statute that was unclear as to whether the parents had authority to veto the abortion and as to the availability of a judicial bypass procedure. The statute returned to the Supreme Court in Bellotti v. Baird (Bellotti II).⁽⁴⁵⁾ The statute in Bellotti II required a minor to obtain the consent of her parents or circumvent this requirement through a judicial bypass proceeding that did not take into account whether the minor was sufficiently mature to make an informed decision regarding the abortion. The Supreme Court invalidated the statute without a majority opinion.

Justice Powell's plurality opinion held that a state could limit the ability of a minor girl to obtain an abortion by requiring notification or consent of a parent if, but only if, the state established a procedure where the minor girl could bypass the consent or notification requirement.⁽⁴⁶⁾ This has become the de facto constitutional standard for parental consent and notification laws. In upholding parental involvement laws, the plurality found three reasons why the constitutional rights of minors were not identical to the constitutional rights of adults: "The peculiar vulnerability of children; their inability to make decisions in an informed, mature manner; and the importance of the parental role in child rearing."⁽⁴⁷⁾ Thus, the plurality sought to design guidelines for a judicial bypass proceeding that allowed states to address these interests.

In H.L. v. Matheson,⁽⁴⁸⁾ a minor girl challenged the constitutional validity of a state statute that required a physician to give notice to the parents of a minor girl whenever possible before performing an abortion on her. By a vote of six to three, the statute was found to be constitutional. The Court held that a state could require notification of the parents of a minor girl because the notification "furthers a constitutionally permissible end by encouraging an unmarried pregnant minor to seek the help and advice of her parents in making the very important decision whether or not to bear a child."⁽⁴⁹⁾

In Planned Parenthood Association of Kansas City, Missouri, Inc. v. Ashcroft,⁽⁵⁰⁾ the Court found a state law to be constitutional which required a minor to obtain the consent of one of her parents before obtaining an abortion or, in the alternative, to obtain the consent of a juvenile court judge. While there was no majority opinion, this case marked the first time the Court directly upheld a parental consent requirement.

In Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health,⁽⁵¹⁾ the Supreme Court upheld a statute that required a physician to give notice to one of the minor's parents or, under some circumstances, another relative, before performing an abortion on the minor. The statute permitted the physician and the minor to avoid the requirement by a judicial bypass. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, held that the bypass proceeding did not unconstitutionally impair a minor's rights by the creation of unnecessary delay.⁽⁵²⁾ The Court established in this case that it will not invalidate state procedures so long as they seem to be reasonably designed to provide the minor with an expedited process.

In Hodgson v. Minnesota,⁽⁵³⁾ the Court invalidated a state statute that required notification of both parents prior to a minor girl's abortion without the option of a judicial bypass. The Court, however, upheld statutory requirements that both parents be notified of the abortion and a 48 hour waiting period between notification and the performance of the abortion, if such requirements were accompanied by a judicial bypass procedure that met constitutional standards.

This line of cases makes clear that a state may require the consent or notification of one or both of a minor's parents if the state provides for a constitutionally sound judicial bypass procedure. The Child Custody Protection Act is designed to preserve the application of such state laws, supplemented by a penalty section to provide a uniform penalty for those individuals circumventing laws by crossing state lines. Because the Act derives its substantive content entirely from state law, the Act will only be enforceable when a prosecutor can show that a constitutionally sound state parental consent or notification law exists. Thus, the CCPA itself does not independently implicate any constitutional issues associated with parental notification or consent mandates.

VI. Conclusion

Each year, our children's lives are placed in jeopardy as girls are escorted by strangers and others into neighboring states for abortions in contravention of state parental notice and consent laws. Only parents are familiar with and authorized to disclose a child's prior medical history and pertinent medical data. It is imperative, then, that the parents be part of the decision-making process when the decision involved is as monumental and irreversible as the decision to abort an unborn. Moreover, the rights of parents to raise their children according to the dictates of conscience are fundamental and constitutionally protected.

Studies conducted in various states (profiled above) demonstrate an unmistakable correlation between the number of girls seeking abortions out of state and the existence of parental consent and/or notification laws in the girls' home states. In states requiring parental consent or notification, abortion counselors often circumvent the law by referring girls to out-of-state clinics which advertise that they do not require parental consent or a waiting period. This scenario fosters hasty and ill-advised decisions in which confused, frightened young girls are coerced into having abortions by those who may not have the girls' best interest in mind. The Child Custody Protection Act will rightly outlaw this reprehensible practice.

1. In addition, parental involvement laws in 12 other states are currently not in effect because of court action regarding those laws.

2. A 1998 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 78 percent of Americans support parental consent before abortions are performed on girls under the age of 18. Parental notification laws receive even greater support. A 1992 national poll by the Wirthlin Group found that 80 percent of Americans support requiring parental notification before an abortion is performed on a girl under age 18. It is not surprising, then, that 78% of registered voters in a recent poll by Baselice & Associates "strongly disagreed" when asked whether "a person [should] be able to take a minor girl across state lines to obtain an abortion without her parents' knowledge." Another 7% "somewhat disagreed," while only 3% "somewhat agreed" and 6% "strongly agreed."

3. See Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308 (1913).

4. H.L. v. Matheson, 450 U.S. 398, 411 (1981).

5. Bruce A. Lucero, M.D., Parental Guidance Needed, N.Y. Times, July 12, 1998, section 4, at 1.

6. Id.

7. Id.

8. Matheson, 450 U.S. at 411 n.20.

9. See Willard Cates, Jr., M.D., M.P.H., Kenneth F. Schulz, M.B.A. & David A. Grimes, M.D., The Risks Associated With Teenage Abortion, The New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 15, 1983, at 621-624.

10. See Burkman et al., Morbidity Risk Among Young Adolescents Undergoing Elective Abortion, Contraception, vol. 30 (1984), at 99-105.

11. Labor of Love is Deemed Criminal, The National Law Journal, Nov. 11, 1996, at A8.

12. Teen-Agers Cross State Lines in Abortion Exodus, N.Y. Times, Dec. 18, 1995, at B6.

13. See id.

14. See id.

15. See id.

16. Charles V. Zehren, New Restrictive Abortion Law, Newsday, Feb. 22, 1994.

17. See Charlotte Ellertson, Ph.D., Mandatory Parental Involvement in Minors' Abortions: Effects of the Laws in Minnesota, Missouri, and Indiana, American Journal of Public Health, Aug., 1997, at 1371.

18. See Illinois May Tighten Rules on Abortions For Teens; Parental Consent is Not Required Abortion Bill Targets as Teen Haven For Abortion, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 25, 1999.

19. The Massachusetts law was changed in 1997 to require the consent of one parent (or judicial authorization), rather than both parents as previously required.

20. See Virginia G. Cartoof & Lorraine V. Klerman, Parental Consent for Abortion: Impact of the Massachusetts Law, American Journal of Public Health, April 1986, at 397.

21. See id. at 398.

22. Id. at 399.

23. See M.A.J. McKenna, Mass. abortion laws push teens over border, Boston Herald, April 7, 1991, at A1.

24. Stanley K. Henshaw, The Impact of Requirements for Parental Consent on Minors' Abortions in Mississippi, Family Planning Perspectives, June, 1995, at 121.

25. Id. at 122.

26. Lisa A. Singh, Those Are the People Who Are Being Hurt, Style Weekly, Feb. 11, 1997.

27. Ellen Nakashima, Fewer Teens Receiving Abortions In Virginia, The Washington Post, March 3, 1998.

28. See Child Custody Protection Act: Hearings on H.R. 3682 Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the House Comm. on the Judiciary, 105^th Congress (statement of Professor Teresa Stanton Collette, Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law) (citing Mike A. Males & Kenneth S.Y. Chew, The Ages of Fathers in California Adolescent Births, 1993 Am. J. Publ. Health 565 (April 1996); David J. Landry & Jacqueline Darroch Forrest, How Old Are U.S. Fathers?, Family Planning Perspectives, July/Aug. 1995, at 159).

29. See id. (citing Mike A. Males, Adult Involvement in Teenage Childbearing and STD, Lancet, July 1995, at 64).

30. See id.

31. See Stanley Henshaw & Kathryn Post, Parental Involvement in Minors' Abortion Decisions, Family Planning Perspectives, Sept./Oct. 1992, at 206.

32. See, e.g., Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470 (1917).

33. See, e.g., A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935); Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942); Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964); United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995).

34. See United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100 (1941).

35. U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 3.

36. 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

37. See Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 985 (Scalia, J., dissenting).

38. 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

39. For the articulation of the "undue burden" standard in Casey, see id. at 874-880. While the "undue burden" standard as expressed in Casey appeared only to be the views of the three-person plurality, Justice Scalia predicted that "undue burden" would henceforward be the relevant standard, see id. at 984-995 (Scalia, J., dissenting). It now appears that the lower federal courts understand that the "undue burden" standard is the correct one to be applied in abortion cases, see, e.g., Manning v. Hunt, 119 F.3d 254, 260 (4th Cir. 1997) ("The trend does appear to be a move away from the strict scrutiny standard toward the so-called 'undue burden' standard of review.").

40. 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

41. 428 U.S. 52 (1976).

42. See id.

43. See id. at 74-75.

44. 428 U.S. 132 (1976).

45. 443 U.S. 622 (1979).

46. See id. at 651.

47. Id. at 634.

48. 450 U.S. 398 (1981).

49. Id. at 409.

50. 462 U.S. 476 (1983).

51. 497 U.S. 502 (1990).

52. See id. at 514-515.

53. 497 U.S. 417 (1990).