Edition: U.S. / Global


By STUART TAYLOR Jr., Special to the New York Times
Published: February 23, 1987

She was 14 when she became pregnant. She told her mother, and her mother called the clinic to set up an abortion. That was where the law came in, about the same time as the morning sickness. A bundle of nausea, anger and fear, she went to the same state court that handles juvenile delinquents, with braces on her teeth and a fullness in her womb.

After being interviewed by several officials and waiting in the hall, recalled Amanda, a pseudonym she chose for an interview this week, ''you go back to the judge's chambers, and you sit in there with some lady who's typing and your court-appointed attorney and your guardian, and the judge asks you why you want an abortion. 'None of His Business'

''And that to me,'' she said, voice rising in high-pitched indignation, ''is none of his business! Why I want an abortion and what I want to do with my life and my body is not up to him.''

But under a 1981 Minnesota law, it was up to the judge to clear the abortion, as long as Amanda was unwilling to tell her father. She remembered him as an alcoholic who had beaten her mother before he moved out long ago. He had taken no interest in her, and she wanted nothing to do with him.

The law required girls under 18 to tell both parents of their plans 48 hours before having an abortion or to ask a state judge to waive the notification. It was held unconstitutional by a Federal district judge in November. First to Weigh How It Works

The Supreme Court, which has handed down six decisions on the extent to which minors' access to abortion can be restricted, will hear arguments in April on the constitutionality of a 24-hour waiting period in an Illinois law somewhat similar to Minnesota's.

But in the Illinois case, as in the past, the Justices will not have any evidence to weigh concerning the actual operation of the law, which was struck down before it took effect.

The Minnesota ruling, which is now before a Federal appeals court, is of particular interest because Federal District Judge Donald D. Alsop's 59-page decision striking it down was the first examination by any court of how a notification law has worked in practice.

After hearing testimony by teen-agers, mothers, abortion providers, juvenile court judges, psychologists and others, he found that the law had burdened minors seeking abortions without serving ''in any meaningful way'' its goal of providing those who were immature with parental support and guidance. #20 States Have Passed Laws At a time when one in every four teen-age girls will become pregnant before reaching 18, the issues raised by parental notification and consent laws touch millions of families.

Twenty states have laws seeking to encourage minors to tell their parents or obtain their consent before having abortions, but about half are not now being enforced because of court orders. Similar proposals are or soon will be pending before many other state legislatures, including New York's. New York, like New Jersey and Connecticut, currently has no such requirement.

Judge Alsop struck at the heart of such proposals when, without disputing that teen-agers could benefit from parental guidance, he suggested that the evidence in Minnesota contradicted the Supreme Court's ''assumption'' that legislation could in fact foster such parent-child consultation.

That assumption has been a critical element in the Court's past decisions on minors' access to abortions.

While the precise issue before the Supreme Court in the Illinois case is narrow, involving a 24-hour waiting period for minors who choose to tell their parents, the Court's ruling could clear up some of the confusion left by its previous decisions.

Those rulings have created a complex set of rules leaving groups on both sides of the abortion issue unhappy -especialy anti-abortion groups and some parents who are outraged at the notion that a judge could authorize a 14-year-old girl to have an abortion without even telling her parents. Parents Can't Have Final Say

The Justices have struck down laws that gave parents an absolute veto over their daughters' decisions, saying that a prompt and confidential judicial procedure to ''bypass'' parents must be available both for minors deemed mature enough to make their own decisions and for immature minors whose best interests would be served by having abortions without parental consent.

But in upholding state requirements that minors submit to such a court procedure, the majority has reasoned that ''immature'' minors could benefit from governmental encouragement to consult their parents.

Judge Alsop, however, said the evidence indicated the Minnesota law did not in practice spur many teen-agers to consult their parents. Those who had reason to hope their parents would be supportive would have consulted them without such a law, he found.

He said Minnesota's requirement that both parents be notified was actually counterproductive because it forced pregnant teen-agers who had confided in one parent to go to court anyway, in an era when about half of all marriages end in divorce and some girls fear their fathers would react violently if told of their pregnancies.