On January 18th, the ACLU of Illinois Reproductive Rights Project and a bevy of professional medical organizations joined together to ask the Illinois Court of Appeals to strike down the Illinois Parental Notification Act of 1995.
Both the ACLU of Illinois and a number of prestigious medical groups told the court that if allowed to take effect (it has blocked from enforcement since it was adopted by the Illinois General Assembly), the Act will cause young women to suffer significant and irreversible harms as they exercise their fundamental right to terminate a pregnancy. Last year, a Circuit Court in Cook County labeled the Act "an unfortunate piece of legislation," because "the evidence makes clear that it's likely to cause more harm than any good." This is the essence of the argument made by the ACLU of Illinois and the leading professional medical organizations in their arguments to the appellate court.
The medical organizations supporting the ACLU's position in this litigation include: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist, American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Medical Women's Association, American Psychiatric Association, Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Illinois Psychiatric Society, Illinois Public Health Association, and Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.
