Commonwealth v. Hartford

Juvenile Law Center represented Rosa Hartford, an adult, in her appeal in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reverse her criminal conviction under Pennsylvania’s Interference With Custody of Children Statute. Hartford was convicted for assisting a 13-year-old Pennsylvania girl who traveled to New York to obtain an abortion without the knowledge or consent of her parent. Under New York law a young woman need not obtain the consent of either parent before obtaining an abortion. The 13-year-old testified at trial that she was neither coerced into traveling to New York nor coerced into having the abortion. Moreover, she testified that she arrived at her decision to terminate her pregnancy on her own after consultation with various people, including her older sister.

On appeal Juvenile Law Center argued that as a matter of federal and state law, a parent has no right of "custody" to control his or her daughter's decision to choose abortion and that the Pennsylvania statute was being wrongly applied to prosecute Hartford under these facts.  Juvenile Law Center further argued that prosecuting a person for accompanying a young woman to obtain an abortion violated the young woman's constitutionally protected right to choose to have an abortion, as well as the young woman's right to travel to a state whose laws permit her to obtain an abortion without parental consent.

Although the case was fully briefed and argued before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the Court dismissed the matter as improvidently granted after argument.  On remand, Juvenile Law Center negotiated an agreement for Hartford to be diverted into a program for first-time offenders so that she would not have a criminal record.