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Don't buy the propaganda defending what Gonzalez did on the Texas Supreme Court. Gonzalez voted to overturn TWO lower court rulings denying a 17-year old a judicial bypass. He and the other judges defined a judicial bypass (a provision allowing a minor to abort if she could she a certain level of maturity) at the lowest possible level, thus making it considerably easier for minors to get abortions without parental consent.

President-elect George W. Bush's White House counsel appointee, Alberto R. Gonzales, earlier this year cast the tie-breaking vote in the Texas Supreme Court against a parental consent requirement for a minor to obtain an abortion.

One of the nine judges on the high court -- who are all Republicans -- Gonzales opined without explanation in March that a 17-year-old high school girl did not have to notify her parents before she underwent an abortion. The case was the first of many "Jane Does" flooding Texas courts at all levels after the state's Parental Notification Act went into effect Jan. 1 and has resulted in uncharacteristic division among the justices.

The law was passed by the Texas legislature last year and requires that at least one parent of girls 17 and under be notified before abortions are performed on the minors. Included in the original version of the bill, however, was a provision for judicial bypass of parental notification, which supporters of the measure say was necessary to pass a constitutionality test.

"If the court finds that the minor is mature and sufficiently well informed, that notification would not be in the minor's best interest, or that notification may lead to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse of the minor, the court shall enter an order authorizing the minor to consent to the performance of the abortion without notification to either of her parents or a managing conservator or guardian," the law states.

In the first Jane Doe case that opened the door to others, a trial court denied the girl's petition, saying she did not prove a high level of maturity or that abuse would result from telling her parents about her pregnancy. That decision was upheld by an appeals court, but the Texas Supreme Court sent the case back to be reheard. The process was repeated, and on March 10, the state's highest court granted the girl's petition. While Gonzales was the tie-breaking vote in the March 10 order, which was initially issued without an explanation, he said he was not the tie-breaking vote on the opinion issued days later