The case involved a Probate and Family Court order appointing the parents of Mary Moe, a thirty-two-year-old woman with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder who was pregnant, as guardians authorized to consent to an abortion and sterilization on her behalf. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed the portion of the order concerning sterilization because the required notice, hearing, and substituted-judgment procedures for that procedure had not been followed. It vacated the portion authorizing the abortion because the judge had not conducted a proper evidentiary hearing or adequately considered the guardian ad litem report and other evidence in applying the substituted-judgment standard. The court remanded for an expedited evidentiary proceeding on the abortion issue before a different judge and modified the guardianship appointment to cover only general medical and welfare matters unrelated to the contested procedures.

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