JUNEAU -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is backing legislation that would require parental consent for a minor to have an abortion in Alaska.

Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole, and Sens. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, and Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, introduced the House and Senate bills at the beginning of the session. They appeared with Palin and more than a dozen lawmakers at a news conference Thursday. "The most important thing is the right of Alaska children to receive support and the ability for them to receive the support and input of their parents as they face a life-changing decision," Palin said.

Palin has voiced strong anti-abortion views, which endeared her to social conservatives when she was the Republican vice presidential hopeful last year. Palin, however, has not pushed that agenda in the Legislature until now.

Palin said she was not actively involved last year because she was assured a parental consent bill would pass.

She did not introduce her own bill this year so as not to create competing legislation, she said.

Just days after being named John McCain's running mate, Palin announced that her teenage daughter was pregnant. Bristol Palin gave birth Dec. 27 to a boy named Tripp and recently told a Fox News Channel host that it was her own choice to have the baby.

Coghill's bill would revise the Parental Consent Act passed by the Legislature in 1997, which was overturned 3-2 by the Alaska Supreme Court in 2007. The court held that the parental consent requirement was unconstitutional because it infringed on a pregnant teen's right to reproductive freedom.

The court is more conservative now with a Palin appointee replacing a justice who cast a vote to overturn.

Last year, an identical bill passed the House but failed to get a hearing in the Senate. Dyson unsuccessfully tried to bring it up on the Senate Floor the last day of the session through a maneuver that would have bypassed the committee process.

Executive director Clover Simon said Planned Parenthood opposes the bill on constitutional grounds.

The group also is troubled with a section of the bill that would allow a teen to bypass parental consent by petitioning a court. She said the requirements are onerous for a teen who may be in an abusive situation at home.

Simon said her group wants parents to be involved in the decision.

"We just don't believe you can mandate parental communication with their teens," she said. "It has to be something that starts long before the unintended pregnancy."

Bill supporter Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, said a citizen's initiative would be filed if the legislation does not pass. Huggins did not say who would be filing the initiative.