Girls on the Stand: How Courts Fail Pregnant Minors »

Helena Silverstein is professor of government and law at Lafayette College. She is the author of Unleashing Rights: Law, Meaning, and the Animal Rights Movement.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2008

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that states may require parental involvement in the abortion decisions of pregnant minors as long as minors have the opportunity to petition for a "bypass" of parental involvement. To date, virtually all of the 34 states that mandate parental involvement have put judges in charge of the bypass process. Individual judges are thereby responsible for deciding whether or not the minor has a legitimate basis to seek an abortion absent parental participation. In this revealing and disturbing book, Helena Silverstein presents a detailed picture of how the bypass process actually functions.

Silverstein led a team of researchers who surveyed more than 200 courts designated to handle bypass cases in three states. Her research shows indisputably that laws are being routinely ignored and, when enforced, interpreted by judges in widely divergent ways. In fact, she finds audacious acts of judicial discretion, in which judges structure bypass proceedings in a shameless and calculated effort to communicate their religious and political views and to persuade minors to carry their pregnancies to term. Her investigations uncover judicial mandates that minors receive pro-life counseling from evangelical Christian ministries, as well as the practice of appointing attorneys to represent the interests of unborn children at bypass hearings.

Girls on the Stand convincingly demonstrates that safeguards promised by parental involvement laws do not exist in practice and that a legal process designed to help young women make informed decisions instead victimizes them. In making this case,the book casts doubt not only on the structure of parental involvement mandates but also on the naïve faith in law that sustains them. It consciously contributes to a growing body of books aimed at debunking the popular myth that, in the land of the free, there is equal justice for all.

Publishers Weekly

In the wake of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roev. Wade decision, many states tested Roeby placing restrictions on abortion rights. Most states now have parental consent laws for women under age 18. For minors who have reason to avoid parental involvement, the Supreme Court has instituted a generally welcomed compromise that allows minors to seek authorization by a third party, usually a judge. In this groundbreaking study, Silverstein, a professor of government and law at Lafayette College, demonstrates that this compromise is fatally flawed. Widely surveying courts in Alabama, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, she discovered that while some courts implement the bypass process straightforwardly, in many others judges defy the law. Some will not sign bypass waivers because they oppose abortion; others insist that the minor receive counseling from a pro-life Christian ministry; still others appoint a lawyer to represent the interests of the fetus. Silverstein does an excellent job of explicating the serious problems with this compromise, concluding that it is rooted in the myth that judges can be relied on to be unbiased. While her writing tends toward the academic and legalistic, Silverstein has produced an important contribution to women's studies and legal practice and theory. (May)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Acknowledgments     ix
Parental Involvement Mandates
A Balancing Act     3
The Legal Landscape     19
Gaining Access to the Bypass Process
Satisfaction     39
Ignorance     52
Misconduct     72
The Judicial Pulpit
Judgment Day     97
Facing the Fetus     115
Law and Politics
The Constitutional Fine Print     135
Myth-Guided Policy     157
Notes     179
Bibliography     219
Index     229
About the Author     239