Opinion ID: 852983
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Equal Privileges Under the Indiana Constitution

Text: The plaintiff's constitutional challenge to this legislation is based solely on the Equal Privileges Clause found in Article I, Section 23 of the Indiana Constitution. The test for constitutionality under that clause is established in Collins v. Day, 644 N.E.2d 72 (Ind.1994), and is accurately recited by the majority: First, the disparate treatment accorded by the legislation must be reasonably related to inherent characteristics which distinguish the unequally treated classes. Second, the preferential treatment must be uniformly applicable and equally available to all persons similarly situated. Finally, in determining whether a statute complies with or violates Section 23, courts must exercise substantial deference to legislative discretion. Id. at 80. Although the Collins formulation is often described as a two-pronged test, it really breaks down into three components because the first prong establishes two requirements: 1) the classification must be based on characteristics that rationally distinguish the unequally treated class, and 2) the disparate treatment must be reasonably related to the characteristics that define the class. I think this means, in simple terms, that the class must be defined by a characteristic that is not arbitrary or otherwise impermissible and that the difference in legislative treatment must be reasonably related to the difference between the classes. The second prong of Collins imposes a third test: everyone who is in fact in the class (i.e., everyone who shares the defining characteristic) must be treated alike, and everyone who is not in the class must be treated alike. As we noted in McIntosh v. Melroe Co., 729 N.E.2d 972 (Ind.2000), the characteristic that defines the legislative class is not necessarily innate (e.g., race, national origin). It may be a mutable characteristic that the same person may have as of a given time, but lack at others (e.g., people who are over age sixty-two can elect to receive Social Security benefits, but are ineligible before attaining that age; a corporation with seventy-five or fewer shareholders can elect to be taxed more or less as a partnership, but is ineligible with seventy-six shareholders). Or, as in McIntosh, the classification may be based on a sequence of events (persons injured by products in use for over ten years have no claim under the Product Liability Act). [2] And so on. Here the relevant characteristics defining the class generally entitled to Medicaid benefits are indigence and desire for a medically necessary treatment. In Section 23 terms, the Medicaid statute confers a privilege on those persons. The plaintiffs here are indigent and seek reimbursement for procedures that are medically necessary as that term is used in the Medicaid statute. The State refuses to pay because the requested medical treatment would terminate a pregnancy that is neither life endangering nor the result of rape or incest. Therefore, the defining characteristic of the classification of citizens this legislation draws is those women who are (1) requesting a medically necessary abortion and (2) otherwise eligible for Medicaid benefits but (3) whose pregnancy is neither life endangering nor a result of rape or incest. The result is that this legislation confers a privilege by providing benefits to indigents requiring medically necessary treatment, but withholds that privilege from poor women in need of medically necessary abortions to terminate a pregnancy that is neither life threatening nor originated by rape or incest. The statute thus sets up a scheme for funding abortions that is different from that for funding for all other medical treatment.