Bellotti, Attorney General of Massachusetts, et al. v. Baird et al.
The Court unanimously upheld a Massachusetts law requiring parental consent to a minor's abortion, where a judge could order consent for good cause if one or both parents refused.· AI-written
428 U.S. 132 · No. 75-73 · 1975 term · Burger Court
Decided Jul 1, 1976 · argued Mar 23, 1976
Judicial power · Comity: privacy
Majority opinion: Harry Blackmun
The voteMajority
9–09 in the majority, 0 in dissent
No dissent (9–0)
Vacated and remanded. Bellotti, Attorney General of Massachusetts, et al. won.
What this ruling means
Vacated and remanded: the Supreme Court set aside the decision of the Massachusetts U.S. District Court, wiping it out without necessarily saying the result was wrong, and sent the case back for that court to decide again under the right legal standard.
Bellotti, Attorney General of Massachusetts, et al. was the petitioner, the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the case. “Won” means the Court gave that side the result it asked for.
From the Supreme Court Database. A justice who agreed with the result but not the reasoning counts in the majority.
Summary
The opening of the case’s Wikipedia article: what the case was about and what the Court held.
Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132 (1976), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a Massachusetts law requiring parental consent to a minor's abortion, under the provision that "if one or both of the [minor]'s parents refuse... consent, consent may be obtained by order of a judge... for good cause shown." The decision was unanimous, and the opinion of the Court was written by Harry Blackmun. The law in question "permits a minor capable of giving informed consent to obtain a court order allowing abortion without parental consultation, and further permits even a minor incapable of giving informed consent to obtain an abortion order without parental consultation where it is shown that abortion would be in her best interests."
The case was initially titled as Baird v. Quinn (Baird et al. v. Quinn et al.) since at the time proceedings commenced, Robert H. Quinn was the attorney general of Massachusetts. He was replaced in 1975 by Francis X. Bellotti.
Data notes
The text is Wikipedia’s (CC BY-SA 4.0), matched to the case by its citation, docket number or name and year, and is not checked against the opinion. The site keeps the article’s opening section, ending on its last full sentence. The one-sentence summary under the title is the Decisions list’s: Wikipedia’s own ruling sentence, or, tagged “AI-written”, one Claude wrote from this opening.
How the justices voted
Each justice who took part, placed by their Martin–Quinn ideology score for the 1975 term. Filled: the 9 in the majority. Hollow: the 0 in dissent. Colour is the party of the president who appointed them.
Majority(9)
Harry BlackmunWrote the majority opinion
William BrennanJoined the majority
Thurgood MarshallJoined the majority
John StevensJoined the majority
Potter StewartJoined the majority
Byron WhiteJoined the majority
Lewis PowellJoined the majority
Warren BurgerJoined the majority
William RehnquistJoined the majority
Dissent(0)
- None.
Data notes
Each justice’s vote and what they wrote are from the justice-centered file of the Supreme Court Database. “Wrote a concurrence” means the justice sided with the majority and wrote separately; a justice who dissented in part is counted on the side they took overall. A justice who wrote nothing is listed as joining their side.
Positions are each justice’s Martin–Quinn score for the case’s term, the same scores as the Ideology page: negative is more liberal, positive more conservative. A score sums up a justice’s votes across the whole term, so it says where they usually sit, not why they voted as they did here. The median line is the Court’s median justice that term.
The parties
Who brought the case to the Court, who answered it, and how it got there.
- Petitioner
- Bellotti, Attorney General of Massachusetts, et al.State (Massachusetts)
- Respondent
- Baird et al.Health organization or person, nursing home, medical clinic or laboratory, chiropractor
- Reached the Court by
- Appeal (the Court was required to hear it)
Data notes
The names are the two sides of the case’s title. The description under each is the Supreme Court Database’s category for that party, in its own wording. The petitioner is the side that asked the Supreme Court to review the decision below. “Why it was taken” appears only when the majority opinion says lower courts disagreed or were unsure about the question; reasons that would fit any case (“to resolve the question presented”, “an important question”) are left out.
The law at issue
The law the Court was asked to apply, and the kind of power it used to decide.
- Provision
- Abstention Doctrine
- Kind of law
- Other
- Decided by
- Supreme Court supervision of lower federal or state courts or original jurisdiction; Federal common law
Data notes
The Supreme Court Database codes the main constitutional provision, statute or court rule each case turned on, and the basis of the decision: judicial review of a federal or state law, interpreting a statute, supervising the lower courts, and so on. A case can rest on more than one. “Overruled” counts only where the majority opinion says so.
Timeline
What happened at the Court and how the case got there, newest first.
- Jul 1, 1976DecidedDecided · Decided 9–0: vacated and remanded. Bellotti, Attorney General of Massachusetts, et al. won.
- Mar 23, 1976ArguedArgued · Oral argument before the Court.
- Not datedTaken upTaken up · Reached the Supreme Court on appeal, which the Court had to hear.
- Not datedCourt belowCourt below · Began in and was decided by the Massachusetts U.S. District Court, with a dissent.
Data notes
From the Supreme Court Database: the court the case began in, the court whose decision the Supreme Court reviewed and what that court did, how the case came to the Court, and the dates of argument and decision. The database does not date the steps in the lower courts. Court names are the database’s.
Official record
Read the full opinion on Justia, the argument audio on Oyez and Wikipedia. Case data from the Supreme Court Database, Version 2026 Release 01, through the 2025 term.