Imagine what it will be like for the pregnant teens who could show up at court when the law takes effect today.
Planned Parenthood and women's clinics are scrambling to train counselors to help girls through the judicial process if they want to bypass their parents to get an abortion. Meantime, the state Supreme Court has adopted "expedited rules" with guidelines for teens, attorneys and doctors.
Starting Monday, teens who are abused, are victims of incest or are mature enough to choose an abortion and cannot get a parent's permission to end their pregnancy will have to go to juvenile court to ask a judge for an exception.
The court clerk will put the girl in contact with an attorney to represent her. A confidential hearing must be scheduled within 72 hours or the girl's petition will be granted automatically. A girl can participate by phone. Judges must rule immediately after the hearings. And court employees are barred from disclosing anything about the proceedings.
Supreme Court Justice Ronald Nehring declined to explain the rules further. "The rules are going to speak for themselves," Nehring said. "It's not my place to make editorial comments on the rules."
But earlier this week, court administrators and judges freely gave their opinions during a Judicial Council meeting as they tried to figure out how to apply the law.
In a tape-recording of the meeting in which justices were not clearly identified, they argued every point of the law. Brent Johnson, an attorney for the Administrative Office of the Courts, called the issue a "political hot potato" that the Legislature "punted" to the courts.
One judge concluded every petition would be approved because contrary evidence will not be presented in a closed hearing. "If it's a confidential hearing, they are always going to be granted," the jurist said.
The judges debated: Should a guardian ad litem be assigned to represent each girl? Would a guardian ad litem - a state attorney appointed to represent a child - be able to advocate for an abortion? Who could be present at the hearings? Should anyone be called to counter the evidence presented by the teen and her attorney? How can the court check if a teen is who she says she is if an address and phone number are not required on her petition? And in rural communities, how can the courts maintain a confidential process when everyone knows everyone else?
"If every one of these is granted, nobody's going to question us," another judge said. "It's important to go into this on appropriate ground and principles."
The new court rules resolve some questions but leave others unanswered.
Ogden Republican Rep. Kerry Gibson sponsored the legislation replacing Utah's 30-year-old parental-notification law during the 2006 Legislature with the goal of discouraging girls from having abortions. In addition to requiring doctors to get a parent's consent 24 hours before a teen's abortion, the law requires doctors to notify one of the girl's parents even in cases where a judge says the girl doesn't need a parent's permission.
In 2004, 158 Utah teens 17 years old and younger had an abortion, a decline of about 20 percent from the year before. Doctors say 90 percent of those girls come to clinics with a parent or other adult.
But court administrators expect about a third of girls seeking abortions to ask judges for permission. Lawmakers set aside $31,500 annually for additional court costs.
Planned Parenthood Director Karrie Galloway laments the rush to implement the law; legislators required the courts to adopt rules two months after Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed the bill. Galloway says her organization and health clinics are rushing to get up to speed on the new court rules filed Thursday.
"It's typical of the Legislature. This sort of thing takes effort and time, and they don't care," Galloway said. "They abdicate responsibility for having good laws, good process and good training."
Getting a judicial bypass order "doesn't necessarily have to be easy, but it has to be respectful and humane."
