520us1$41I 05-14-98 09:56:54 PAGES OPINPGT
Cite as: 520 U. S. 292 (1997)
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Ginsburg and Justice Breyer join, concurring in the judgment.
We assumed in Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S. 502 (1990) (Akron II), that a young woman's demonstration that an abortion would be in her best interest was sufficient to meet the requirements of the Ohio statute's judicial bypass provision. In my view, that case requires us to make the same assumption here. Whether that is a necessary showing is a question we need not reach.
In Akron II, we upheld a statute authorizing a judicial bypass of a parental notice requirement on the understanding that Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2151.85(C)(2) (1995) required the juvenile court to authorize the procedure whenever it determined that "the abortion is in the minor's best interest," 497 U. S., at 511. Given the fact that the relevant text of the Montana statute at issue in this case, Mont. Code Ann. § 50-20-212(5)(b) (1995), is essentially identical to the Ohio provision, coupled with the fact that the Montana Attorney General has advised us that "the best interests standard in § 50-20-212(5)(b) [is] either identical to or substantively indistinguishable from the best interests" provision construed in Akron II, Pet. for Cert. 7, it is surely appropriate to assume that the Montana provision also requires the court to authorize the minor's consent whenever the abortion is in her best interests. So understood, the Montana statute is plainly constitutional under our ruling in Akron II. Because the Court of Appeals erroneously construed the statute in a manner that caused that court to hold the statute unconstitutional, I agree with the majority that the judgment below should be reversed.*
*Our reading of the statute in Akron II appropriately recognized that the two inquiries at issue here—whether an abortion is in a young woman's best interest, and whether notifying a minor's parents of her desire to obtain an abortion is in her best interest—are sometimes linked. For example, if a judge finds after careful assessment of all the circumstances
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