The law required notice to both parents of a minor before she could undergo an abortion; it also contained a judicial bypass provision designed to take effect only if a court found one to be necessary.

[1] Justices Stevens, Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun and O'Connor formed a majority holding that the two-parent notice requirement by itself was unconstitutional.

[1] Justice O'Connor believed that the two-parent requirement entailed risk to a pregnant teenager; she also argued that the rule failed to meet even the lowest standard of judicial review, a rationality standard.

[1] The ruling struck down the two-parent notification requirement, the majority citing an APA brief asserting that one-parent families are common in that state and that within the state, a minor often only needs one parent's permission for certain health needs; the rest of the statute, though, was voted constitutional because of its allowance for judicial bypass.

This case involved the first restriction on abortion that Justice O'Connor voted to strike down.