Planned Parenthood v. Casey
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| Planned Parenthood v. Casey | |
| Reference: 505 U.S. 833 | |
| Term: 1992 | |
| Important Dates | |
| Argued: April 22, 1992 Decided: June 29, 1992 | |
| Outcome | |
| United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in judgment | |
| Majority | |
| Sandra Day O'Connor • Anthony Kennedy • David Souter • John Paul Stevens (in part) • Harry Blackmun (in part) | |
| Concurring | |
| (All concurred partially in the judgment) William Rehnquist • Antonin Scalia • Clarence Thomas • Byron White • John Paul Stevens • Harry Blackmun | |
| Dissenting | |
| (All in part) William Rehnquist • Antonin Scalia • Clarence Thomas • Byron White • John Paul Stevens • Harry Blackmun | |
Planned Parenthood v. Casey is a case decided on June 29, 1992, by the United States Supreme Court that reaffirmed the holding established in Roe v. Wade that women had a right to privacy that guaranteed their right to an abortion until a certain point in their pregnancy. The case concerned a Pennsylvania state law alleged to have placed unconstitutional restrictions on the abortion right formulated in Roe. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, holding four of the five contested provisions in the Pennsylvania law as constitutional and rejecting the fifth provision requiring women to inform their spouse before seeking an abortion.[1][2]
Why it matters: Casey altered the federal-state relationship by changing and redefining the conditions under which states could make abortion policy decisions. The Supreme Court's plurality decision reaffirmed the abortion right established in Roe but replaced Roe's trimester framework and allowed states to prohibit abortion after viability (the point at which fetal life could exist outside of the womb). The plurality also decided the undue burden standard of review was the proper framework for analyzing pre-viability state abortion restrictions.[3][1]
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) fully overturned Roe and Casey and returned the matter of abortion regulation to the states. Click here for more information.
Background
Pennsylvania amended its abortion regulations in 1988 and 1989, establishing (1) a 24-hour waiting period and informed consent requirement, (2) a spousal notice requirement (for married women), and (3) a parental notice requirement (for minors). A group of abortion clinics filed a lawsuit in district court to challenge the three restrictions and (4) the law's definition of a medical emergency and (5) abortion clinic reporting requirements as violative of the abortion right established under Roe v. Wade.[1][2]
A district court found all five provisions unconstitutional and prohibited Pennsylvania from enforcing them. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the district court's decision in part and reversed it in part, finding all of the provisions constitutional except the spousal notice requirement.[1][2]
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court.
Oral argument
Oral argument was held on April 22, 1992. The case was decided on June 29, 1992.[1]
Decision
The Supreme Court decided 5-4 that there was a constitutional right to privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment that guaranteed the right to abortion as established in Roe v. Wade. The court held by the same vote that the spousal notification requirement in Pennsylvania law was unconstitutional. The court also held 7-2 that the other contested provision in Pennsylvania's law were constitutional. The court's decision was divided and no majority fully agreed to a single opinion. Three justices in the 5-4 majority (O'Connor, Souter, and Kennedy) wrote the controlling plurality opinion that modified Roe.[1][2]
Opinions
Plurality opinion
The plurality, which justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter co-authored, held that there was a constitutional right to privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment that guaranteed the right to abortion as established in Roe v. Wade. The plurality invoked the doctrine of stare decisis and argued that overturning Roe would detract from the court's institutional legitimacy. Justices Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens joined the first portion of the plurality.
| “ | After considering the fundamental constitutional questions resolved by Roe, principles of institutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis, we are led to conclude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed.
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The three-justice plurality replaced Roe's trimester framework and allowed states to prohibit abortion after viability (the point at which fetal life could exist outside of the womb) and regulate abortion pre-viability.
| “ | Roe established a trimester framework to govern abortion regulations. Under this elaborate but rigid construct, almost no regulation at all is permitted during the first trimester of pregnancy; regulations designed to protect the woman's health, but not to further the State's interest in potential life, are permitted during the second trimester; and during the third trimester, when the fetus is viable, prohibitions are permitted provided the life or health of the mother is not at stake.
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The three justices also decided the undue burden standard of review, rather than Roe’s strict scrutiny standard of review, was the proper framework for analyzing pre-viability state abortion restrictions.[1]
| “ | Numerous forms of state regulation might have the incidental effect of increasing the cost or decreasing the availability of medical care, whether for abortion or any other medical procedure. The fact that a law which serves a valid purpose, one not designed to strike at the right itself, has the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate it. Only where state regulation imposes an undue burden on a woman's ability to make this decision does the power of the State reach into the heart of the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause.[4] | ” |
The plurality found that all of the challenged provisions of the Pennsylvania abortion law except the spousal notification requirement were constitutional under the undue burden standard of review.[1]
Blackmun and Stevens
The other two justices in the 5-4 majority supporting Roe, Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens, wrote separate opinions agreeing with the plurality in upholding a constitutional abortion right and rejecting the spousal notification law as unconstitutional. However, the justices argued that the other provisions of Pennsylvania's abortion regulations should have been rejected as unconstitutional as well, that the trimester framework was superior to the viability framework, and that strict scrutiny was the proper standard of judicial review for abortion regulations.[1]
Blackmun wrote:
| “ | Today, no less than yesterday, the Constitution and decisions of this Court require that a State's abortion restrictions be subjected to the strictest judicial scrutiny. Our precedents and the joint opinion's principles require us to subject all non-de-minimis abortion regulations to strict scrutiny. Under this standard, the Pennsylvania statute's provisions requiring content-based counseling, a 24-hour delay, informed parental consent, and reporting of abortion-related information must be invalidated.
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Stevens similarly wrote:
| “ | My disagreement with the joint opinion begins with its understanding of the trimester framework established in Roe. Contrary to the suggestion of the joint opinion, ante, at 876, it is not a "contradiction" to recognize that the State may have a legitimate interest in potential human life and, at the same time, to conclude that that interest does not justify the regulation of abortion before viability (although other interests, such as maternal health, may). The fact that the State's interest is legitimate does not tell us when, if ever, that interest outweighs the pregnant woman's interest in personal liberty. It is appropriate, therefore, to consider more carefully the nature of the interests at stake.
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Stevens also argued that Pennsylvania's abortion laws failed the undue burden test:
| “ | In my opinion, a correct application of the "undue burden" standard leads to the same conclusion concerning the constitutionality of these requirements. A state-imposed burden on the exercise of a constitutional right is measured both by its effects and by its character: A burden may be "undue" either because the burden is too severe or because it lacks a legitimate, rational justification.[4] | ” |
Rehnquist and Scalia (joined by Thomas and White)
The remaining four justices (Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Byron White, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist) joined the plurality's judgment in upholding the 24-hour waiting period and informed consent requirement, parental consent requirement, definition of a medical emergency, and abortion clinic reporting requirements as constitutional. Scalia and Rehnquist each wrote opinions (Thomas and White joined both opinions, Scalia joined Rehnquist's opinion, and Rehnquist joined Scalia's opinion) arguing for the reversal of Roe, advocating for the rational basis standard of review instead of the plurality's undue burden standard or Roe's strict standard, and supporting the spousal notice requirement as constitutional.[1]
Rehnquist wrote in his opinion that Roe was wrongfully decided and needed reversed. Rehnquist argued the plurality did not properly adhere to stare decisis as they claimed and did nothing to preserve the court's legitimacy. He said courts should overturn precedent if cases are wrongfully decided, citing cases like Plessy v. Ferguson as examples of poor jurisprudence where the court had to later correct itself (as in Brown v. Board of Education):
| “ | The joint opinion, following its newly minted variation on stare decisis, retains the outer shell of Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), but beats a wholesale retreat from the substance of that case. We believe that Roe was wrongly decided, and that it can and should be overruled consistently with our traditional approach to stare decisis in constitutional cases.
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Rehnquist argued that the rational basis standard was the correct level of judicial review for state laws governing abortion, rejecting Roe's strict scrutiny and the plurality's undue burden standard:
| “ | We think, therefore, both in view of this history and of our decided cases dealing with substantive liberty under the Due Process Clause, that the Court was mistaken in Roe when it classified a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy as a "fundamental right" that could be abridged only in a manner which withstood "strict scrutiny."
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Using the rational basis standard of review, Rehnquist argued that all of the challenged provisions in Pennsylvania's law were constitutional:
| “ | For the reasons stated, we therefore would hold that each of the challenged provisions of the Pennsylvania statute is consistent with the Constitution. It bears emphasis that our conclusion in this regard does not carry with it any necessary approval of these regulations. Our task is, as always, to decide only whether the challenged provisions of a law comport with the United States Constitution. If, as we believe, these do, their wisdom as a matter of public policy is for the people of Pennsylvania to decide.[4] | ” |
Scalia's opinion, in addition to supporting Rehnquist's points, added the argument that the Constitution made no mention of abortion as a fundamentally protected right and that abortion policy decisions were best suited for elected and representative branches of government:
| “ | The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting. As the Court acknowledges, "where reasonable people disagree the government can adopt one position or the other." Ante, at 851. The Court is correct in adding the qualification that this "assumes a state of affairs in which the choice does not intrude upon a protected liberty," ibid.--but the crucial part of that qualification is the penultimate word. A State's choice between two positions on which reasonable people can disagree is constitutional even when (as is often the case) it intrudes upon a "liberty" in the absolute sense. Laws against bigamy, for example--with which entire societies of reasonable people disagree--intrude upon men and women's liberty to marry and live with one another. But bigamy happens not to be a liberty specially "protected" by the Constitution.
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Impact
Casey altered the federal-state relationship by changing and redefining the conditions under which states could make abortion policy decisions.
Before the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision, states made decisions about abortion policy. The Supreme Court in Roe ruled that the Constitution guaranteed a right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that limited the ability of states to restrict abortion. The decision invalidated state laws that conflicted with the rules laid out in the court's opinion, which generally prohibited states from banning abortion through the second trimester.[3]
The plurality's decision in Casey to replace Roe's trimester framework allowed states to prohibit abortion after viability (the point at which fetal life could exist outside of the womb) and regulate abortion before viability to a greater extent. Casey's adoption of the less-rigorous undue burden standard of review, rather than Roe’s strict scrutiny standard of review, allowed state governments to regulate abortion as long as state interests were rationally related and did not impose an undue burden on abortion access in the court's opinion.[3][5]
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturns Casey
The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization fully overturned Roe and Casey and returned abortion policy decisions to state governments. The court held "that the undue-burden standard was 'not built to last'” and replaced the undue burden standard of review with the rational basis standard of review. The rational basis standard employed was less rigorous than the undue burden standard and the strict scrutiny standard and only required state laws to have "a rational basis on which the legislature could have thought that [a law] would serve legitimate state interests" (emphasis added) to be considered constitutional. The court held that legitimate state interests included "respect for and preservation of prenatal life at all stages of development; the protection of maternal health and safety; the elimination of particularly gruesome or barbaric medical procedures; the preservation of the integrity of the medical profession; the mitigation of fetal pain; and the prevention of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability."[6]
See also
External links
- Full text of case syllabus and opinions (Justia)
- Supreme Court of the United States
- Search Google News for this topic
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 Justia, "Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)," accessed June 28, 2022
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Oyez, "Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, accessed July 12, 2022
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Justia, "Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)," accessed June 28, 2022
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Justia, "Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)," accessed June 28, 2022
- ↑ Supreme Court, "19-1392 DOBBS V. JACKSON WOMEN'S HEALTH: Questions Presented," accessed May 17, 2021
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