'Sufficiently mature'? Judge Stargel's dissent in teen's abortion petition draws attention

Abortion-rights proponents are criticizing a judge for citing the grade-point average and grammar of a 17-year-old girl in arguing that she be denied an abortion without parental approval.

Judge John K. Stargel of Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal focused on those elements in his dissent as part of a three-judge panel in an opinion issued Tuesday. The other two judges overruled a lower-court judge and approved the girl’s petition for a judicial bypass of the state’s parental-consent law.

Stargel of Lakeland is a former state legislator and the husband of Florida Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, who sponsored a bill in last year’s session requiring parental consent before a minor can obtain an abortion. The bill, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, includes the option of receiving court approval to avoid parental consent.

Court documents identified the girl seeking an abortion, a high school junior, as “Jane Doe” and didn’t disclose where she lives.

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The 30-page ruling contains an eight-page dissent from Judge Stargel to the majority opinion written by Judge Darryl C. Casanueva, with Judge Susan H. Rothstein-Youakim concurring. The written opinion makes it clear that Stargel wasn't the first judge in the case to assess the teenager's GPA and grammar as signs of her maturity level.

Stargel noted that in the original ruling, Hillsborough County Circuit Court Judge Jared E. Smith raised the issue of misspellings and grammatical errors in the girl’s petition.

Smith also noted that the minor misspelled the seven-letter name of her former employer in ruling that she lacked the maturity to make a decision about an abortion, Stargel wrote.

“Of course, nerves could have been a factor for a young woman appearing in court,” Stargel wrote in his dissent. “Again, while these are not conclusive, they certainly are factors the court may consider.”

Citing inconsistencies

Smith’s ruling focused on the girl’s school grades under the headings “Credibility and Demeanor as a Witness" and "Overall Intelligence." Smith cited what he considered inconsistencies, Stargel wrote.

The two judges in the majority opinion determined that “a C average demonstrates average intelligence for a high school student" and that "a C average or the making of Bs demonstrates an appropriate level of intelligence." Stargel wrote that the judges didn’t cite any authority for those conclusions.

Stargel wrote that the girl testified she was currently receiving B grades and said that indicated her GPA was previously “even lower” than 2.0. He then noted that the state’s parental-consent law does not mention grade-point average as a determining factor for judicial review of a minor’s petition for an abortion.

“In the statute under consideration, the legislature simply states that ‘overall intelligence’ is a factor and leaves that determination to the trier of fact, who can certainly include evidence beyond GPA or grades when appropriate,” Stargel wrote. “The trial court here clearly considered many factors in reaching its determination.”

Stargel wrote that the trial judge correctly determined the girl was not “sufficiently mature by clear and convincing evidence” to decide on having an abortion without parental guidance.

Stargel did not respond to a request for comment. Judges rarely speak publicly about rulings or written opinions.

State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, criticized Stargel’s dissent Wednesday on Twitter. Her tweet had received more than 1,000 likes and 500 retweets as of Friday. 

“While Senator Kelli Stargel works to restrict and ban abortion via the Legislature, her judge husband just tried to deny a minor’s judicial bypass to access an abortion on appeal because he said her GPA wasn’t high enough to get an abortion,” Eskamani said Thursday in an email to The Ledger. “There is no GPA requirement to access an abortion, but this is what happens in states like Florida where minors are forced to go through an inherently humiliating and stressful process of begging for permission to end their pregnancies.”

Sen. Kelli Stargel has sponsored or supported a series of bills during her time in the Legislature aimed at restricting abortion or enhancing regulations around the procedure. She introduced a bill on the first day of the current session that would limit abortions to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

Rep. Erin Grall, R-Vero Beach, has filed a companion bill in the House. The legislation is similar to a Mississippi law now being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In an email to The Ledger, Sen. Stargel said that while she and her husband share many values, their official activities are separate.

"In terms of the underlying issue, from what I have seen, the social media-driven rage over my husband’s dissent is rife with pro-abortion rhetoric, yet so short on actual facts, I really have to question whether they actually read anything about the case," Stargel wrote.

She noted that an appeals court rules only on whether a trial judge acted in accordance with the law. 

"With specific regard to this case, the point (Judge Stargel) makes in his dissent, which is very clear to anyone who took the time to read it, is that the trial court judge who had the opportunity to closely review all the facts and actually meet the young woman, was in the best posture to make a determination about whether or not she provided sufficient evidence to show she is mature enough to make the decision to undergo a life changing medical procedure without involving her parents."

The dissenter

Mark Joseph Stern, a staff writer for the online publication Slate, tweeted: “By a 2–1 vote, a Florida appeals court overruled a judge who refused to let a 17-year-old terminate her pregnancy because she was not ‘sufficiently mature.’ The dissenter is married to the GOP legislator who recently introduced a 15-week abortion ban.”

Some news outlets beyond the Tampa area, including CBS4 in Miami and CBS12 News in West Palm Beach, have reported on Judge Stargel’s dissent.

National Right to Life News, based in Alexandria, Virginia, reported on the ruling, writing “… the trial judge undertook an exhaustive examination to determine whether the girl ‘show(ed) sufficient maturity to terminate her pregnancy without notifying a parent.’ Judge Stargel chose not to second guess the trial judge, judges Casanova and Rothstein-Yoakum felt no such obligation.” (The report misspelled the names of Casanueva and Rothstein-Youakim.)

The Second District Court of Appeal is officially based in Lakeland but moved to Hillsborough County because of environmental problems at the Polk County site. The court clerk’s office is still in Lakeland.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.