520us1$41H 05-14-98 09:56:54 PAGES OPINPGT
Cite as: 520 U. S. 292 (1997)
Per Curiam
the Bellotti 'best interests' criterion, and is unconstitutional." 937 F. 2d, at 439.
Based entirely on Glick, the Ninth Circuit in this case affirmed the District Court's ruling that the Montana statute is unconstitutional, since the statute allows waiver of the notification requirement only if the youth court determines that notification—not the abortion itself—is not in the minor's best interests. 93 F. 3d, at 572.
As should be evident from the foregoing, this decision simply cannot be squared with our decision in Akron. The Ohio parental notification statute at issue there was indistinguishable in any relevant way from the Montana statute at issue here. Both allow for judicial bypass if the minor shows that parental notification is not in her best interests. We asked in Akron whether this met the Bellotti requirement that the minor be allowed to show that "the desired abortion would be in her best interests." We explicitly held that it did. 497 U. S., at 511. Thus, the Montana statute meets this requirement, too. In concluding otherwise, the Ninth Circuit was mistaken.
Respondents (as did the Ninth Circuit in Glick) place great emphasis on our statement in Akron, that "[t]he statute requires the juvenile court to authorize the minor's consent where the court determines that the abortion is in the minor's best interest." 497 U. S., at 511 (emphasis added) (citing Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2151.85(C)(2) (Supp. 1988)). But since we had clearly stated that the statute actually required such authorization only when the court determined that notification would not be in the minor's best interests, it is wrong to take our statement to imply that the statute said otherwise. Rather, underlying our statement was an assumption that a judicial bypass procedure requiring a minor to show that parental notification is not in her best interests is equivalent to a judicial bypass procedure requiring a minor to show that abortion without notification is in her best in-
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