On Tuesday, Jackson County Circuit Judge Sarah Castle dismissed a pro-abortion lawsuit seeking to strike down a long-standing Missouri law that required parental consent before a minor can obtain an abortion. The minor has the option of going to a judge and asking him or her to bypass the requirement.
In a 17-page decision Judge Castle threw out the lawsuit filed by the California group “Right By You.” She concluded
It remains undisputed that Right By You is not incorporated and does not otherwise have a statutorily authorized legal entity status in Missouri.
Judge Castle added,
The Court has considered the evidence in the light most favorable to Plaintiff and ultimately finds that Right By You lacks the capacity to either sue or be sued. Based upon the foregoing, the Court finds that the Motions to Dismiss should be GRANTED.
However, Judge Castle emphasized she was not addressing the state’s parental consent law’s legality.
According to Attorney General Catherine Hanaway
The case, Right By You v. State of Missouri, 2516-CV13783 (Jackson Cnty. Cir. Ct.), challenged Missouri’s parental consent laws on the grounds that the laws were allegedly invalidated by the 2024 adoption of Amendment 3, which added a right to abortion to the Missouri Constitution. The Court’s dismissal of Right By You’s challenge allows Missouri’s parental consent requirements remain in full effect despite the adoption of Amendment 3.
The decision, she added,
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ensures that Missouri’s parental consent laws will continue to safeguard young girls, hold abortion providers accountable, and uphold the values of Missouri families for generations to come.
The attorney general’s office explained that the law is most definitely needed:
The Attorney General’s Office also obtained undercover video footage of Planned Parenthood employees in Independence, Missouri, arranging for a 13-year-old’s abortion without her parents’ consent. In that video, staff admitted that they arrange such procedures “every day,” in open defiance of Missouri law. That incident remains the subject of an ongoing investigation and enforcement action in Boone County Circuit Court.
After the attorney general’s office asked the court to dismiss the case, Judge Castle heard arguments in early September. Writing for the Missouri Independent Anna Spoerre reported
Peter Donohue, an assistant attorney general involved in the lawsuit, told Castle that the judicial bypass measures in place are sufficient.
“It’s kind of wild the plaintiffs think that in cases where judicial bypass is insufficient, that they want basically no circumstance in which parents would be notified of their minor children having an abortion, essentially,” Donohue said.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.
