Nevada Top Court Blocks Abortion Parental Notification Law

Nevada minors can get an abortion without informing their parents, as the state’s top court blocked enforcement of the provision while a lower court considers its constitutionality.

Planned Parenthood of Mar Monte and an unnamed physician had standing to challenge the law and demonstrated they had a reasonable likelihood of succeeding on their claim, that enforcing the provision during litigation would cause irreparable harm, and that the balance of hardships and public interest favored them, a unanimous Nevada Supreme Court said Thursday.

The plaintiffs had standing to challenge the law’s judicial bypass provision, which allows minors to seek judicial approval in the absence of parental notification, Chief Justice Douglas Herndon said. The issues were ripe for review because the parties would be harmed by a delay, he said.

The statute as written “could allow seriously discriminatory enforcement,” the court said.

While challenges to parental notification provisions are less common since the US Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade, such provisions can still be challenged under state constitutions.

The plaintiffs sued the state and its officials in July 2025, after a federal district court in April lifted a 1985 injunction that had kept it from taking effect.

A state trial judge refused to enjoin the law’s enforcement pending trial, but the justices said that “vagueness so permeates to text of of the parental notification provision” that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their void-for-vagueness challenge. The judicial bypass provision, which creates a procedure for minors to request a judge’s permission to have an abortion in lieu of notifying their parents, is similarly vague, they said.

Parental rights have long been recognized as fundamental but the plaintiffs’ interests in preserving the status quo and access to healthcare outweighed it in this case, the court said. The justices sent the case back to the lower court with instructions to enter the preliminary injunction.

Planned Parenthood has received funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charitable organization founded by Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg Law is operated by entities controlled by Michael Bloomberg.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Bravo SchragerLLP, and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP represent the plaintiffs. The Nevada Attorney General’s Office represents the defendants.

The case is Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, Inc. v. Nevada, Nev., No. 91394, 5/28/26.