Planned Parenthood of Alaska v. Campbell

In 2007, the Alaska Supreme Court struck down certain provisions of the Parental Consent Act (PCA), legislation that required parental consent or a court order for a doctor to be legally allowed to perform an abortion on an unmarried, unemancipated woman under age 17. The court’s ruling was that the PCA, as written, violated the minor’s rights to privacy, but the court also advised that a statutory scheme requiring parental notification could be enacted. Accordingly, in 2009, three women submitted an application for a ballot initiative named the Parent Involvement Initiative (PNI), which would have again prohibited a doctor from performing an abortion on an unmarried, unemancipated woman under 18 without parental notification or approval. The Alaska lieutenant governor, Craig Campbell (defendant), certified the application after reviewing over 30,000 signatures gathered and adopted a ballot summary of the PNI prepared by the state’s attorney general. However, Planned Parenthood of Alaska (plaintiff) filed suit claiming that the summary was defective. Specifically at issue were the omission of three facts: 1) that the PNI would change existing law that did not require parental notification, 2) that the PNI modified the earlier PCA by providing a least-restrictive means of protecting the state’s interest in the health of minors and the family’s interest in being involved in a pregnancy decision, and 3) that the PNI would make it a felony with up to five years of prison for a doctor to knowingly violate the notice provisions. The trial court found that the summary was indeed deficient because it was not impartial and accurate but also found that the summary could be corrected for the ballot. Both rulings were appealed.