Opinion ID: 4433771
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Relevant Group for Undue Burden Analysis

Text: If a statute “will operate as a substantial obstacle” “in a large fraction of the cases in which [it] is relevant,” the statute “is an undue burden and therefore invalid.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 895 (opinion of the Court); accord, Whole Woman’s Health, 136 S. Ct. at 2320. The analysis starts with those “upon whom the statute operates”—i.e., “the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is irrelevant.” Casey, 505 U.S. at 894 (opinion of the Court). For the spousal notice law struck down in Casey, that was less than one percent of women seeking abortions. This group serves as the denominator for the relevant fraction Casey described. Under Casey, a statute that will have the practical eﬀect of giving someone else a veto over a woman’s abortion decision is an undue burden. See 505 U.S. at 897 (spousal notice requirement would give husbands of spousal abuse victims “an eﬀective veto” that “will often be tantamount to the veto found unconstitutional in Danforth”) (emphasis added). Casey qualified its holding on spousal notice by saying it was “in no way inconsistent” with the Court’s parental notice and consent requirements for minors. 505 U.S. at 895. But here, as in Casey, evidence matters. See id. at 887–94 (discussing district court’s findings and studies of domestic violence). Planned Parenthood’s evidence—which the State did not rebut with its own—raises concerns about minors similar to those the Casey Court had about the practical veto imposed on some women by spousal notice. Casey shows that a practical veto can be an undue burden, whether that practical veto is held by a partner or a parent of a mature minor. No. 17-2428 17 The Casey analysis focuses on proportions, not total numbers. See Van Hollen, 738 F.3d at 798 (“It is not a matter of the number of women likely to be aﬀected.”). Although the record does not indicate the exact number of unemancipated minors who will be aﬀected as they go through the judicial bypass, the number appears to be small. In fiscal year 2015, 96 percent of minors who had abortions at Planned Parenthood facilities in Indiana had their parent or guardian’s consent. Beeley Decl. ¶ 9. Just four percent did not have consent. Between October 2011 and September 2017, about 60 young women contacted the bypass coordinator, and only some of them obtained an abortion. Smith Decl. ¶ 9. On average, that is about 10 minors per year.5 In the district court, Planned Parenthood argued that the denominator for the Casey fraction is unemancipated minors seeking bypasses. These are the young women for whom the law’s restriction is relevant. Cf. Casey, 505 U.S. at 895 (opinion of the Court) (defining denominator as “married women seeking abortions who do not wish to notify their husbands of their intentions and who do not qualify for one of the statutory exceptions to the notice requirement”). The district court found that the bypasses granted to Planned Parenthood patients “have generally been based on the juvenile court’s finding that the minor was suﬃciently mature.” Planned Parenthood, 258 F. Supp. 3d at 936, citing Beeley Decl. ¶ 26. Accordingly, Planned Parenthood argues that the burdensome eﬀects of the new parental notice requirement produce a large 5In calendar year 2017, 236 minors obtained abortions in Indiana. Indiana State Department of Health, Terminated Pregnancy Report 2017, at 7, available at https://www.in.gov/isdh/files/2017%20Indiana%20Terminated%20Pregnancy%20Report.pdf. 18 No. 17-2428 Casey fraction because most bypasses have been granted on maturity grounds, which is not a basis for excusing parental notice under the challenged Indiana law. We agree. On this record, though, the correct numerator and denominator may both actually be even larger. Both numbers include not only young women who could be deemed mature in a judicial bypass of the consent requirement, but also young women who are likely to be deterred from even attempting judicial bypass because of the possibility of parental notice. Indiana has aimed this requirement at the tiny group of minors who could show maturity but could not show that parental notice would not be in their best interests. The evidence in the preliminary injunction record indicates that the statute’s eﬀect will be broader because it will prevent some minors from even seeking bypass in the first place. The fear these minors feel at the prospect of the “chance that their parents will have to be informed that they are seeking an abortion … would be a deal breaker.” Smith Decl. ¶ 20.