Source: http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/428/52/case.html
Timestamp: 2013-12-09 00:33:41
Document Index: 644841021

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 6', '§ 7', '§ 9', '§ 10', '§ 6', '§ 3', '§ 559', '§ 6', '§ 7', '§ 9', '§ 10', '§ 2', '§ 6', '§ 3', '§ 2', '§ 5', '§ 2', '§ 3', '§ 3', '§ 3']

Planned Parenthood v. Danforth - 428 U.S. 52 (1976) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
Justia > US Law > US Case Law > US Supreme Court > Volume 428 > Planned Parenthood v. Danforth - 428 U.S. 52 > Case	NEW - Receive Justia's FREE Daily Newsletters of Opinion Summaries for the US Supreme Court, all US Federal Appellate Courts & the 50 US State Supreme Courts and Weekly Practice Area Opinion Summaries Newsletters. Subscribe Now
Case	U.S. Supreme CourtPlanned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976)Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. DanforthNo. 74-1151Argued March 23, 1976Decided July 1, 1976*428 U.S. 52APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
§ 3(2), requiring that, before submitting to an abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a woman must consent in writing to the procedure and certify that "her consent is informed and freely given, and is not the result of coercion"; § 3(3), requiring, for the same period, the written consent of the spouse of a woman seeking an abortion unless a licensed physician certifies that the abortion is necessary to preserve the mother's life; § 3(4), requiring, for the same period, and with the same proviso, the written consent of a parent or person in loco parentis to the abortion of an unmarried woman under age 18; § 6(1), requiring the physician to exercise professional care to preserve the fetus' life and health, failing which he is deemed guilty of manslaughter and is liable in an action for damages; § 7, declaring an infant who survives an attempted abortion not performed to save the mother's life or health an abandoned ward of the State, and depriving the mother and a consenting father of parental rights; § 9, prohibiting, after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, the abortion procedure of saline amniocentesis as "deleterious to maternal health"; and §§ 10 and 11, prescribing reporting and recordkeeping Page 428 U. S. 53 requirements for health facilities and physicians performing abortions. The District Court ruled that the two physicians had "obvious standing" to maintain the suit, and that it was therefore unnecessary to determine if Planned Parenthood also had standing. On the merits, the court upheld the foregoing provisions with the exception of § 6(1)'s professional skill requirement, which was held to be "unconstitutionally overbroad" because it failed to exclude the pregnancy stage prior to viability.
5. The State may not constitutionally impose a blanket parental consent requirement, such as § 3(4), as a condition for an unmarried minor's abortion during the first 12 weeks of her pregnancy for substantially the same reasons as in the case of the spousal consent provision, there being no significant state interests, whether to safeguard the family unit and parental authority or other vise, in conditioning an abortion on the consent of a parent with respect to the under-18-year-old pregnant minor. As stressed in Roe, "the abortion decision and its effectuation must Page 428 U. S. 54 be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician." 410 U.S. at 410 U. S. 164. Pp. 428 U. S. 72-75.
BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, STEWART, MARSHALL, and POWELL, JJ., joined, in all but Parts IV-D and IV-E of which STEVENS, J., joined, and in all but Parts IV-C, IV-D, IV-E, and IV-G of which BURGER, C.J., and WHITE and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. STEWART, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which POWELL, J., joined, post, p. 428 U. S. 89. WHITE, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BURGER, C.J., and REHNQUIST, J., joined, post, p. 428 U. S. 92. STEVENS, J., Page 428 U. S. 55 filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 428 U. S. 101.
After the decisions in Roe and Doe, this Court remanded for reconsideration a pending Missouri federal case in which the State's then-existing abortion legislation, Page 428 U. S. 56 Mo.Rev.Stat. §§ 559.100, 542.380, and 563.300 (1969), was under constitutional challenge. Rodgers v. Danforth, 410 U.S. 949 (1973). A three-judge federal court for the Western District of Missouri, in an unreported decision, thereafter declared the challenged Missouri statutes unconstitutional and granted injunctive relief. On appeal here, that judgment was summarily affirmed. Danforth v. Rodgers, 414 U.S. 1035 (1973).
Three days after the Act became effective, the present litigation was instituted in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The plaintiffs are Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri, a not-for-profit Missouri corporation which maintains a facility in Columbia, Mo., for the performance of abortions; David Hall, M.D.; and Michael Freiman, M.D. Doctor Hall is a resident of Columbia, is licensed as a physician in Missouri, is chairman of the Department and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Missouri Medical School at Columbia, and supervises abortions at the Planned Parenthood facility. He was described by the three-judge court in the 1973 case as one of four plaintiffs who were "eminent, Missouri-licensed obstetricians and gynecologists." Jurisdictional Page 428 U. S. 57 Statement, App. 7, in Danforth v. Rodgers, No. 73-426, O.T. 1973. Doctor Freiman is a resident of St. Louis, is licensed as a physician in Missouri, is an instructor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University Medical School, and performs abortions at two St. Louis hospitals and at a clinic in that city.
Id. at 9. Plaintiffs sought declaratory relief and also sought to enjoin enforcement of the Act on the ground, among others, that certain of its provisions deprived them and their patients of various constitutional rights: "the right to privacy in the physician-patient relationship"; the physicians' "right to practice medicine according to the highest standards of medical practice"; the female patients' right to determine whether to bear children; the patients' "right to life due to the inherent risk involved in childbirth" or in medical procedures alternative to abortion; the physicians' "right to give and plaintiffs' patients' right to receive safe and adequate medical advice and treatment pertaining to the decision of whether to carry a given pregnancy to term and the method of termination"; the patients' right under the Eighth Amendment to be free from cruel and unusual punishment "by forcing Page 428 U. S. 58 and coercing them to bear each pregnancy they conceive"; and, by being placed "in the position of decision making beset with . . . inherent possibilities of bias and conflict of interest," the physician's right to due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 10-11.
§ 6(1), requiring the physician to exercise professional care "to preserve the life and health of the fetus" and, failing such, deeming him guilty of manslaughter and making him liable in an action for damages; § 7, declaring an infant who survives "an attempted abortion which was not performed to save the life or health of the mother" to be "an abandoned ward of the state under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court," and depriving the mother, and also the father if he consented to the abortion, of parental rights; § 9, the legislative finding that the method of abortion known as saline amniocentesis "is deleterious to maternal health," and prohibiting that method after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy; and §§ 10 Page 428 U. S. 59 and 11, imposing reporting and maintenance of record requirements for health facilities and for physicians who perform abortions.
One judge concurred in part and dissented in part. Id. at 1374. He agreed with the majority as to the constitutionality of §§ 2(2), 3(2), 10, and 11, respectively relating to the definition of "viability," the woman's prior written consent, maintenance of records, Page 428 U. S. 60 and retention af records. He also agreed with the majority that § 6(1) was unconstitutionally overbroad. He dissented from the majority opinion upholding the constitutionality of §§ 3(3), 3(4), 7, and 9, relating, respectively, to spousal consent, parental consent, the termination of parental rights, and the proscription of saline amniocentesis.
Ibid. Instead, Page 428 U. S. 61 this right "must be considered against important state interests in regulation." Id. at 410 U. S. 154.
without interference from the State. Id. at 410 U. S. 164. The participation by the attending physician in the abortion decision, and his responsibility in that decision, thus, were emphasized. After the first stage, as so described, the State may, if it chooses, reasonably regulate the abortion procedure to preserve and protect maternal health. Ibid. Finally, for the stage subsequent to viability, a point purposefully left flexible for professional determination, and dependent upon developing medical skill and technical ability, [Footnote 1] the State may regulate an abortion to protect the life of the fetus and even may proscribe abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother. Id. at 410 U. S. 163-165. Page 428 U. S. 62
Our primary task, then, is to consider each of the Page 428 U. S. 63 challenged provisions of the new Missouri abortion statute in the particular light of the opinions and decisions in Roe and in Doe. To this we now turn, with the assistance of helpful briefs from both sides and from some of the amici.
We agree with the District Court, and conclude that the definition of viability in the Act does not conflict with what was said and held in Roe. In fact, we believe that, Page 428 U. S. 64 § 2(2), even when read in conjunction with § 5 (proscribing an abortion "not necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother . . . unless the attending physician first certifies with reasonable medical certainty that the fetus is not viable"), the constitutionality of which is not explicitly challenged here, reflects an attempt on the part of the Missouri General Assembly to comply with our observations and discussion in Roe relating to viability. Appellant Hall, in his deposition, had no particular difficulty with the statutory definition. [Footnote 3] As noted above, we recognized in Roe that viability was a matter of medical judgment, skill, and technical ability, and we preserved the flexibility of the term. Section 2(2) does the same. Indeed, one might argue, as the appellees do, that the presence of the statute's words "continued indefinitely" favor, rather than disfavor, the appellants, for, arguably, the point when life can be "continued indefinitely outside the womb" may well occur later in pregnancy than the point where the fetus is "potentially able to live outside the mother's womb." Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. at 410 U. S. 160.
In any event, we agree with the District Court that it is not the proper function of the legislature or the courts to place viability, which essentially is a medical concept, at a specific point in the gestation period. The time when viability is achieved may vary with each pregnancy, and the determination of whether a particular fetus is viable is, and must be, a matter for the judgment of the responsible attending physician. The definition of viability in § 2(2) merely reflects this fact. The appellees do not contend otherwise, for they insist Page 428 U. S. 65 that the determination of viability rests with the physician in the exercise of his professional judgment. [Footnote 4]
The woman's consent. Under § 3(2) of the Act, a woman, prior to submitting to an abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, must certify in writing her consent to the procedure and "that her consent is informed and freely given, and is not the result of coercion." Appellants argue that this requirement is violative of Page 428 U. S. 66 Roe v. Wade,410 U.S. at 410 U. S. 164-165, by imposing an extra layer and burden of regulation on the abortion decision. See Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. at 410 U. S. 195-200. Appellants also claim that the provision is overbroad and vague.
The District Court's majority relied on the propositions that the decision to terminate a pregnancy, of course, "is often a stressful one," and that the consent requirement of § 3(2) "insures that the pregnant woman retains control over the discretions of her consulting physician." 392 F.Supp. at 1368, 1369. The majority also felt that the consent requirement "does not single out the abortion procedure, but merely includes it within the category of medical operations for which consent is required." [Footnote 6] Id. at 1369. The third judge joined the majority in upholding § 3(2), but added that the written consent requirement was "not burdensome or chilling," and