Opinion ID: 2974482
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Large Fraction Test

Text: Planned Parenthood of Se. Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), sets the standard that we are bound to apply in facial challenges to abortion restrictions. In Casey, the Supreme Court set forth the test that must be applied in analyzing whether a restriction placed on a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion is an “undue burden” on that right, thereby rendering the restriction facially unconstitutional. Id. at 878, 894–95. The Supreme Court determined that, because “[l]egislation is measured for consistency with the Constitution by its impact on those whose conduct it affects,” when analyzing abortion restrictions, “[t]he proper focus of constitutional inquiry is the group for whom the law is a restriction, not the group for whom the law is irrelevant.” Id. at 894. Therefore, if, “in a large fraction of the cases in which [the abortion restriction] is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion,” then reviewing courts should find that the restriction is an “undue burden, and therefore invalid.” Id. at 895. This test has come to be known as the Casey “large fraction” test. 2 Slightly more than a week after CWS filed its complaint, the parties agreed to an order maintaining the status quo — i.e., the state of the law prior to the 1998 amendments — in the form of a preliminary injunction. When the district court entered its final judgment dismissing the case on September 8, 2005, the preliminary injunction was dissolved. The next day the district court issued another order suspending dissolution of the injunction for two weeks. CWS filed a notice of appeal on September 16, 2005. When the order suspending dissolution of the injunction ran its course, the district court, on September 22, 2005, denied CWS’s motion to stay the judgment pending appeal. On October 3, 2005, this Court granted in part and denied in part CWS’s motion to enjoin enforcement of the Act pending appeal. We enjoined enforcement of the Single-Petition Rule, but in all other respects, we denied the motion. No. 05-4174 Cincinnati Women’s Servs. et al. v. Taft et al. Page 5 In the intervening decade, the Supreme Court has not abandoned Casey. See, e.g., Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 510 U.S. 1309, 114 S. Ct. 909, 910 (1994) (Souter, J., denying application for stay of mandate) (if an abortion restriction interposes a substantial obstacle on a large fraction of the affected population, it is an unconstitutional violation of “the exercise of the right to reproductive freedom guaranteed by the Due Process Clause and affirmed in th[e] Court’s Casey opinion” (citations omitted)); Fargo Women’s Health Org. v. Schafer, 507 U.S. 1013, 1014 (1993) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“[W]e made clear that a law restricting abortions constitutes an undue burden, and hence is invalid, if, in a large fraction of the cases in which [the law] is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion.” (internal citation to Casey omitted)).3 In United States v. Salerno, 481 U.S. 739, 745 (1987), the Supreme Court held that, to succeed in a facial constitutional challenge, “the challenger must establish that no set of circumstances exists under which the [law] would be valid.” However, in considering facial challenges to abortion restrictions, every circuit, with one exception, has applied Casey’s test rather than Salerno’s more restrictive “no set of circumstances” test. See Nat’l Abortion Fed’n v. Gonzales, 437 F.3d at 294 (Walker, Jr., C.J., concurring) (“As it stands now, however, the Supreme Court appears to have adopted the ‘large fraction’ standard . . . for those who seek to challenge an abortion regulation as facially unconstitutional.”); Richmond Med. Ctr. for Women v. Hicks, 409 F.3d 619, 628 (4th Cir. 2005) (holding that “Salerno’s ‘no set of circumstances’ standard does not apply in the context of a facial challenge . . . to a statute regulating a woman’s access to abortion”); Planned Parenthood v. Heed, 390 F.3d 53, 57 (1st Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds by Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, 126 S. Ct. 961 (2006) (determining that Casey’s large-fraction test is properly applied to facial abortion-restriction challenges); A Woman’s Choice-E. Side Women’s Clinic v. Newman, 305 F.3d 684, 687, 698–99 (7th Cir. 2002) (an abortion restriction “will be deemed valid unless, in a large fraction of the cases in which the law is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo abortion” (internal citation omitted)); Planned Parenthood of Cent. N.J. v. Farmer, 220 F.3d 127, 142-43 (3d Cir. 2000) (“a plaintiff must show that an abortion regulation would be an undue burden in a large fraction of the cases in which that regulation is relevant”); Planned Parenthood of S. Ariz. v. Lawall, 180 F.3d 1022, 1027, amended on denial of reh’g, 193 F.3d 1042 (9th Cir. 1999) (following the “great weight of circuit authority holding that Casey has overruled Salerno in the context of facial challenges to abortion statutes”); Jane L. v. Bangerter, 102 F.3d 1112, 1116 (10th Cir. 1996) (noting that the Casey Court “did not apply” the Salerno test, but rather “evaluated the regulations under the undue burden standard”); Planned Parenthood, Sioux Falls Clinic v. Miller, 63 F.3d 1452, 1456-58 (8th Cir. 1995) (opting 3 Justice Thomas’s dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000), takes to task the Stenberg majority for not applying Casey’s large-fraction test and implicitly argues that the Court has abandoned the large-fraction test. Id. at 1019–20 (Thomas, J., dissenting). Cf. Nat’l Abortion Fed’n v. Gonzales, 437 F.3d 278, 294 (2d Cir. 2006) (Walker, Jr., C.J., concurring) (“[T]he Supreme Court appears to have adopted the ‘large fraction’ standard (perhaps modified by Stenberg to mean a ‘not-so-large fraction’ standard) for those who seek to challenge an abortion regulation as facially unconstitutional.”). However, Justice Thomas’s criticism is misplaced. The holding in Stenberg relating to whether the abortion restriction before the Court was an undue burden hinged entirely on statutory interpretation. Stenberg, 530 U.S. at 938; see also id. at 938–46. In Stenberg, the state of Nebraska acknowledged that the statute in question placed an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion if it was interpreted in a certain way — the way the Supreme Court eventually interpreted it. Id. Because the state conceded that the statute was an undue burden if interpreted a certain way, the Court did not need to undertake the large-fraction analysis. See Planned Parenthood of Idaho, Inc. v. Wasden, 376 F.3d 908, 921 n.10 (9th Cir. 2004) (“The abortion-specific ‘large fraction’ standard is part and parcel of the undue burden analysis.”). Finally, the Stenberg Court affirmed the Eighth Circuit’s decision in toto, Stenberg, 530 U.S. at 946, which itself used Casey’s large-fraction test, see Carhart v. Stenberg, 192 F.3d 1142, 1149 (8th Cir. 1999); see also id. at 1151 (Because “[a]n abortion regulation that inhibits the vast majority of second trimester abortions would clearly have the effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking a pre-viability abortion” and the restriction here “prohibit[s] the most common procedure for second-trimester abortions,” it thereby causes “an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion.” (quotation omitted)). No. 05-4174 Cincinnati Women’s Servs. et al. v. Taft et al. Page 6 to “follow what the Supreme Court actually did — rather than what it failed to say — and apply the undue-burden test” which requires a court to invalidate an abortion restriction if the law “operate[s] as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion in a large fraction of the cases in which [it] is relevant” (quotation omitted)). The Fifth Circuit stands alone in its rejection of the large fraction test. See Barnes v. Moore, 970 F.2d 12, 14 (5th Cir. 1992) (holding that a plaintiff must “establish that no set 4of circumstances exists under which the Act would be valid” (quoting Salerno, 481 U.S. at 745)). Like the majority of other circuits, this Court too has followed Casey’s large-fraction test in analyzing facial attacks on abortion regulations. In deciding whether a pre-viability abortion restriction passes facial constitutional muster, we “determine whether ‘in a large fraction of the cases in which [the ban] is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion.’” Women’s Med. Prof’l Corp. v. Voinovich, 130 F.3d 187, 196 (6th Cir. 1997) (quoting Casey, 505 U.S. at 895). This has been our repeated and continuous practice. See, e.g., Women’s Med. Prof’l Corp. v. Baird, 438 F.3d 595, 607 (6th Cir. 2006) (following Casey’s holding that “a regulation is an undue burden if ‘in a large fraction of the cases in which [the regulation] is relevant, it will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion’” (quoting Casey, 505 U.S. at 895)); Memphis Planned Parenthood v. Sundquist, 175 F.3d 456, 477 n.3 (6th Cir. 1999) (“When considering [whether a] statute [that regulates abortion] is unconstitutional on its face, we must analyze the factual record to determine whether the challenged regulation in a large fraction of the cases in which it is relevant, will operate as a substantial obstacle to a woman’s choice to undergo an abortion” (citing Casey, 505 U.S. at 895) (emphasis added)); see also Women’s Med. Prof’l Corp. v. Taft, 353 F.3d 436, 443, 446 (6th Cir. 2003) (holding that “a state may regulate abortion before viability as long as it does not impose an ‘undue burden’ on a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy,” and that “an ‘undue burden’ exists when ‘a state regulation has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus’” (citing Casey, 505 U.S. at 876–77)). Thus, our path is clear: We must follow Casey’s large-fraction test in analyzing the facial challenge to the two abortion restrictions before us. Accordingly, we asses whether Ohio’s abortion restrictions present a substantial obstacle to obtaining an abortion for a large fraction of the women for whom the restrictions are relevant. Casey, 505 U.S. at 895.