Montana’s 2013 law barred doctors from providing abortions to minors without notarized written consent from a parent or legal guardian, with violations punishable by fines or jail time. A judicial bypass was available through the state’s youth court system. The law had been blocked for years in litigation brought by Planned Parenthood.

The Montana Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that the law violated the state’s broad constitutional right to privacy, which has protected abortion access since a 1999 precedent. The court held that “a minor’s right to control her reproductive decisions is among the most fundamental of the rights she possesses.”

“Any parental right that exists within this framework,” the court added, “is a right to parent free from state interference, not a right to enlist the state’s powers to gain greater control over a child or to make it more difficult for a minor to exercise their fundamental rights.”

Knudsen’s office urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that the state court ruling improperly elevated state-level rights of minors above federal constitutional protections afforded to parents.

While the justices denied the petition, Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a statement explaining that the high court’s refusal was based on procedural grounds and not the merits of the question at issue, which is whether a parent’s fundamental rights to know and participate in their child’s medical case extends to a minor’s decision to seek an abortion.

“Because of the way this case was litigated below, it provides a poor vehicle for deciding that question,” Alito wrote. He noted the state had not clearly argued in lower courts that the Montana Supreme Court’s decision conflicted with federal parental rights. However, he warned, the court’s denial should “not be read … as a rejection of the argument that the petition asks us to decide.”

Unlike many GOP-led states, Montana has retained broader access for abortion in the aftermath of the 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In 2024, voters approved a ballot measure by a 15-point margin to enshrine abortion access in the state constitution.

SUPREME COURT TAKES UP NEW JERSEY PREGNANCY CLINIC’S DISCRIMINATION CASE

The high court is already set to hear an abortion-adjacent dispute next term, this one involving a New Jersey faith-based pregnancy counseling center fighting back against what it calls a politically motivated investigation by the state’s Democratic attorney general, who claims the facility misled women about offering abortions.

In its term that concluded last week, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that allows states to block Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, a decision that was seen as a major victory by anti-abortion groups and states that said the abortion provider had no right to sue against state orders disqualifying such providers from Medicaid reimbursements, even for non-abortion services.