article_snippet: Generally, laws in the United States require parental consent for a minor to obtain an abortion.
article_snippet: But for some children, parental consent is impossible or even dangerous.
article_snippet: This class of minors must seek a judicial bypass.
article_snippet: the Supreme Court can appoint a Guardian ad Litem -- normally an appointed lawyer for a child in, say, a divorce proceeding or a hearing involving unfit parents -- for the fetus.
article_snippet: The minor may be cross-examined by the district attorney and possibly the minor's parents.
article_snippet: Information about the minor's pregnancy may be disclosed to her family, friends and employers, and her family, friends and employers might even be brought to court to testify -- against the minor.
article_snippet: When it comes to abortion, minors are supposed to enjoy the same constitutional right of privacy as adults, free from undue state interference.
article_snippet: However, the Supreme Court has also specifically articulated reasons why the constitutional rights of children are not identical to the rights of adults.
article_snippet: Children are vulnerable and unable to make critical decisions and, of course, parents have a right to participate in raising parents child.
article_snippet: States may pass laws that subject minors seeking an abortion to an additional requirement: parental involvement.
article_snippet: However, if the state chooses to require parental consent for a pregnant minor to get an abortion, the state also must provide an alternative procedure for obtaining that authorization -- one that "bypasses" having to get Mom and Dad's permission.
article_snippet: " Plus, and perhaps most importantly, the procedure bypassing parental consent cannot be a thinly veiled mechanism for an "absolute, and possibly arbitrary, veto.
article_snippet: This has been defined by the courts as placing a substantial obstacle in the path of the adult, or minor child seeking an abortion.
article_snippet: So then, Supreme Court must determine whether the minor is mature -- mature enough that Supreme Court may have Supreme Court's permission to have an abortion.
article_snippet: for example, a very young pregnant minor with completely absent parents, who needs court intervention.
article_snippet: But ultimately, building up the procedural hurdles for a pregnant minor almost by definition encroaches upon the limits set some time ago by the Supreme Court.  
article_snippet: It's a procedure that needs to be defined; teen pregnancy certainly isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
article_snippet: Whether the boundary lines of judicial bypass ebb toward the autonomy of minors, or back toward the state interest in the fetus, the broader social "findings" of judicial bypass proceedings will always remain the same: It's all very sad.