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For Immediate Release: April 1, 2025
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SBA Pro-Life America, Lozier Institute, and 40+ Pro-Life Groups Submit Amicus Brief Supporting AG Austin Knudsen

    
Helena, Mont. – America’s leading political pro-life group and its research arm filed an amicus brief this week alongside Advancing American Freedom, the Montana Family Foundation, and over 40 pro-life and pro-family leaders supporting Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s efforts to revive parents’ right to consent when a minor seeks an abortion. In August 2024, on behalf of Planned Parenthood, the Montana Supreme Court struck down the state’s parental involvement laws.

In 2012, more than 70% of Montana voters approved a referendum to require parental notification before a minor can undergo an abortion. The following year, then-Gov. Steve Bullock allowed House Bill 391 requiring parental consent to take effect and Planned Parenthood immediately sued the state. Attorney General Knudsen has taken up the fight to restore parental rights after more than a decade.

The amicus brief reads in part:

 A girl or woman who has an abortion is not in the same position as if she had never been pregnant. Once a girl becomes pregnant, a girl’s choice between abortion and carrying the pregnancy to term is a choice between two options with very real consequences…

Because minors lack life experience and context, they are especially likely to give in to suggestions or pressure from others, including the child’s father, that abortion is the best option. This is especially true in cases of abuse by an adult. Parental consent plays an essential role in protecting against these harms caused by abortion.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America Legal Affairs Director Katie Daniel issued the following statement:

“In the state of Montana, girls who aren’t old enough to get their ears pierced on their own can now get an abortion without mom or dad ever knowing. If you’re a parent in Montana, this means someone who is not you and does not share your values gets to decide what happens to your kids. This is far too extreme for the people of Montana. We stand with Attorney General Knudsen as he fights for the rights of parents and the safety of their children.

“Planned Parenthood’s national roadmap for all-trimester, no-limits abortion is to push deceptive ballot measures and activist supreme court justices in Montana, Wisconsin and beyond. They not only intend to eliminate pro-life laws protecting unborn children, but to strip every regulation from Big Abortion so that they can enable abusive boyfriends and sex traffickers and sell dangerous late-term abortions to minors.”

Montana is not the only state where Planned Parenthood has used its institutional resources to fight against, and in some cases get rid of, parental involvement protections. The brief mentions cases in Alaska and Indiana, and parental rights are a major issue related to ballot measures.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and more than 150 pro-life groups across all 50 states are currently lobbying Congress to defund Planned Parenthood and abortion businesses through budget reconciliation. Last week, more than 350 citizen lobbyists traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with hundreds of senators and representatives.

Planned Parenthood receives $700 million in taxpayer funding annually and ends the lives of nearly 400,000 unborn children each year.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is a network of more than one million pro-life Americans nationwide, dedicated to ending abortion by electing national leaders and advocating for laws that save lives, with a special calling to promote pro-life women leaders.

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