In a decision last week about New Hampshire's Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act, the Supreme Court stood firm in its decision not to overturn its abortion precedents.

It also stood firm on not taking a position on the act, which requires abortion providers to notify a minor's parent 48 hours before terminating her pregnancy.

The Court ruled unanimously that states need to include an exception for medical emergencies in any legislation that requires minors to notify parents when aborting a pregnancy.

The justices still did not go as far as ruling the law itself unconstitutional, and their most recent decision sends the case back to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which previously struck down the law without such a medical exception.

By doing so, the Court effectively dodged the abortion debate once again. Rather than hear the case in its entirety, the Court is leaving it up to the 1st Circuit to decide how to word the law so that abortions, when necessary for medical reasons, are permitted.

The lower courts already struck down the law once, and the Supreme Court did little to force a change in interpretation.

By making a decision now, the justices would not have had to touch the landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion because they would be ruling only on the constitutionality of requiring parental notification and not the broader issue of the right to choose.

Parental notification is still a major component of the issue. Currently more than half of the states, including Pennsylvania, require parental notification or permission before a minor can have an abortion. And with such laws throughout the country, now is as good of a time as any to address those restrictions.

It seems as if the Court is just procrastinating on hearing abortion issues for as long as possible. The recent seating of Chief Justice John Roberts and the probable confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito have raised questions about the Court's composition. This makes the ruling on any aspect of abortion that much more significant.

All nine of the current justices, however, voted to leave that significant decision for another day.