Jessica Quinter (Yale Law School) & Caroline Markowitz has posted Judicial Bypass and Parental Rights After Dobbs (Yale Law Journal, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Under Supreme Court precedent, judicial bypass of laws mandating parental involvement for abortion historically balanced the minor’s right to abortion and their parents’ right to direct the minor’s upbringing. This Note confronts the question: with the constitutional right to abortion newly jettisoned, will judicial bypass be vulnerable to parental-rights challenges? We answer: no. First, parental-rights case law embodies an antiquated coverture-like understanding of children. Properly understood, parental rights are coterminous with children’s best interests—and therefore do not conflict with bypass. Second, bypass comports with entrenched common-law doctrines and a tacit consensus evident in statutes that minors should be allowed to self-consent to healthcare.
