In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, the American Center for Law and Justice said parents Howard and Marie Carter had a right to "familial" privacy under the same 14th Amendment protection which formed the basis of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established abortion rights in Roe vs. Wade.

The Carters' 16-year-old daughter got pregnant in 1998, about the time the family moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Hatboro from Tennessee, and sought advice from Hatboro-Horsham High School guidance counselor William Hickey.

Their lawsuit alleges that Hickey usurped the parents and circumvented their privacy rights by failing to divulge the pregnancy while coercing the girl into having an abortion despite her misgivings about the procedure.

Both the counselor and the Hatboro-Horsham School District are named as defendants in the suit. But neither Hickey nor the district superintendent was immediately available for comment.

Officials at the American Center for Law and Justice also did not return phone calls. The center, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is described by legal experts as one of the most effective and best funded public interest groups of the Christian right.

"This case is relatively unusual," said Simon Heller, director of litigation at the New York-based Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, which advocates abortion rights.

"The argument is made over and over again in political circles that the 14th Amendment should be used to protect parental rights. But it rarely makes its way to court."

In Pennsylvania, minors seeking an abortion must obtain written consent from one of their parents or get a court ordered exemption. The lawsuit said Hickey helped arrange for an out-of-state abortion in nearby New Jersey, where there are currently no parental consent requirements.

"If he actually coerced her then he may be liable. Or is it that, after the fact, her parents persuaded her that she should have done something else? It all depends on what really happened," said Heller.