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Lawsuit Filed Concerning Secret Abortion in
Pennsylvania Philadelphia -- A couple is suing their daughter's school guidance counselor for advising the 17-year-old to get a secret abortion and telling her, "Someday you'll look back on this and laugh." The federal lawsuit, filed Monday, also accuses counselor William Hickey of cashing checks from the girl's boyfriend using school district bank accounts, lying to teachers so the girl could miss school and drawing her a map so she could drive to the abortion facility in New Jersey. The lawsuit said the Hatboro-Horsham School District allowed a climate that violates state law requiring consent of a parent or guardian for a minor to get an abortion. The parents said another counselor made overtures to help their daughter out of her "situation." School district officials had no immediate comment. Hickey did not immediately return a call. The family is seeking unspecified damages for emotional distress. The girl went through with the abortion and told her parents about it afterward. In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, the American Centre for Law and Justice said parents Howard and Marie Carter had a right to "familial" privacy under the same 14th Amendment protection which formed the basis of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established abortion on demand. The Carters' 16-year-old daughter got pregnant in 1998, about the time the family moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Hatboro from Tennessee, and sought advice from Hatboro-Horsham High School guidance counselor William Hickey. Their lawsuit alleges that Hickey usurped the parents and circumvented their privacy rights by failing to divulge the pregnancy while coercing the girl into having an abortion despite her misgivings. Both the counselor and the Hatboro-Horsham School District are named as defendants in the suit. "This case is relatively unusual," said Simon Heller, director of litigation at the pro-abortion New York-based Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. "The argument is made over and over again in political circles that the 14th Amendment should be used to protect parental rights. But it rarely makes its way to court." In Pennsylvania, minors seeking an abortion must obtain written consent from one of their parents or get a court ordered exemption. The lawsuit said Hickey helped arrange for an out-of-state abortion in nearby New Jersey, where there are currently no parental consent requirements. This particular case served as the impetus for the Child Custody Protection Act which pro-life lawmakers successfully passed through the House of Representatives.
[Moderator's Note: The following is a press release from the American Center for Law and Justice that gives more specifics on this case....]
Virginia Beach, VA -- The American Center for Law and Justice, a pro-life public interest law firm, filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on behalf of a Pennsylvania couple who charge that a public school guidance counselor usurped their parental rights by coercing and facilitating an abortion for their minor daughter. "This case is about parents' constitutional right to parent," said John Stepanovich, Senior Regional Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, which is representing the parents in the lawsuit. "A school official on the public payroll usurped the role of these parents and arranged a clandestine abortion for their 17 year old daughter. The actions of this school district violated the constitutional rights of the parents and undermined their parental authority by driving a government wedge into this family. What happened in this school district is not only unconstitutional, it is unconscionable." The ACLJ filed suit today on behalf of Howard and Marie Carter of Hatboro, Pennsylvania. The suit contends that William Hickey, a guidance counselor at Hatboro-Horsham High School, coerced and assisted in the arrangement of a secret, out-of-state abortion for their daughter, who had just turned seventeen. She graduated from high school in June 1999. The suit contends that Hickey repeatedly and consistently counseled a secret abortion as the only choice for the teenager, even though she admitted to being seriously troubled about the abortion plans because it violated her religious beliefs. At the same time, the suit contends that Hickey: 1) was deeply involved in directing the teenager to schedule an abortion at a New Jersey abortion clinic to evade Pennsylvania law that requires a minor to obtain parental consent before such a procedure; 2) deliberately concealed from her parents that their daughter was in a crisis; 3) helped arrange the financing for the abortion; and 4) promised to provide false excuses to cover for the student's absence from school while the abortion was being performed. It also charges that Hickey indicated that he had "helped" other teenagers to obtain secret abortions in the past. The lawsuit charges that the Carters' right to familial privacy, guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, was violated by the defendants when Hickey "position[ed] himself as a government wedge between Plaintiffs and their minor daughter." The complaint charges that Hickey "engaged in a course of conduct which was inherently coercive, was intended to and did exert undue influence upon [a minor], and ensured that she refrain from discussing with her parents her pregnancy and whether to obtain an abortion." It also states that the teenager was counseled by Hickey to obtain the secret abortion over a period of several weeks leading up to the abortion, which took place in May 1998. The suit also contends that when the teenager told Hickey about her deep concerns and conflicts over having the abortion, Hickey told her not to worry about it, and offered such advice as "welcome to the adult world," "time heals everything" and "someday you'll look back on this and laugh." The complaint states that when the parents confronted school officials, they told the parents the school supported Hickey's actions, and further stated that the school district has "deep pockets" when the parents raised the possibility of litigation. The lawsuit names as defendants the Hatboro-Horsham School District and William Hickey. The suit requests a permanent injunction to prohibit school officials from providing abortion counseling and/or referring the family's minor children who attend school to any medical practitioner or medical facility without written parental consent. The suit also requests unspecified compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of the parents, who have suffered injuries as a result of Hickey's "extreme, outrageous, reckless and willful misconduct" and the school district's approval of such conduct. ACLJ Affiliate attorney Joseph P. Stanton of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania is assisting the ACLJ as local counsel in this case.
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