ABA Family Legal Guide

Health-Care Law

Specific Issues in Health Care

Abortion

Can minors have abortions without their parents' consent?

The rights of parents to raise their children as they see fit collides with a woman's right to privacy and abortion when she is under the age of eighteen. When it comes to women under eighteen years of age seeking abortions, state laws fall into three groups:

• Girls do not have to get permission or notify their parents of the abortion.
• Girls do not have to get their parents' permission, but they do have to notify their parents that they are planning on having an abortion.
• Girls have to get their parents' permission to have an abortion.