SPRINGFIELD – Lawyers argued before the Illinois Supreme Court for more than an hour Thursday over an abortion notification law that’s nearly two decades old but has never taken effect. The court’s job is merely to determine whether the legal battle will continue.

The law, adopted in 1995, requires doctors of girls 17 and younger to notify a parent 48 hours before an abortion. A girl may bypass her parents by going to a judge.

Opponents of the dormant decree want permission to duke it out in a trial, which an appellate court agreed to last year. The state appealed that decision to the high court, with the Illinois solicitor general saying there’s no need for a trial because of numerous other court rulings on the matter and because opponents haven’t shown they have a right to one.