Opinion ID: 787339
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Singling Out Abortion, Which is Sought only by Women

Text: 58 If a challenged law discriminates on the basis of gender, then it must normally be subject to intermediate scrutiny: When a statute gender-neutral on its face is challenged on the ground that its effects upon women are disproportionably adverse, a twofold inquiry is[] appropriate. The first question is whether the statutory classification is indeed neutral in the sense that it is not gender-based. If the classification itself, covert or overt, is not based upon gender, the second question is whether the adverse effect reflects invidious gender-based discrimination. 59 Personnel Adm'r v. Feeney, 442 U.S. 256, 274, 99 S.Ct. 2282, 60 L.Ed.2d 870 (1979) (citation omitted). 60 The statutory scheme plaintiffs challenge is gender neutral on its face. As discussed above, plaintiffs have not presented any evidence sufficient to show that the disparate impact of the challenged scheme on women reflects invidious discrimination. Thus, plaintiffs' claim that the law violates the equal protection rights of women must fail unless the statutory classification of abortion providers is not in fact neutral, but rather a gender-based classification, by virtue of the fact that only women seek abortion services. If so, then the scheme would normally be subject to intermediate scrutiny. 61 In Geduldig v. Aiello, the Supreme Court held that the denial of disability benefits for pregnant persons only was not equivalent to a gender classification under the equal protection clause, even though only women become pregnant. 417 U.S. 484, 496 n. 20, 94 S.Ct. 2485, 41 L.Ed.2d 256 (1974). However, imposing a disability on pregnant women might nevertheless amount to sex discrimination under the equal protection clause. Indeed, the Supreme Court recently implied that laws which facially discriminate on the basis of pregnancy, even those that facially appear to benefit pregnant persons, can still be unconstitutional if the medical or biological facts that distinguish pregnancy do not reasonably explain the discrimination at hand: 62 The dissent asserts that four of these schemes ... concern pregnancy disability leave only. But Louisiana provided women with four months of such leave, which far exceeds the medically recommended pregnancy disability leave period of six weeks. This gender-discriminatory policy is not attributable to any different physical needs of men and women, but rather to the invalid stereotypes that Congress sought to counter through the FMLA. 63 Nev. Dep't of Human Resources v. Hibbs, 538 U.S. 721, 733 n. 6, 123 S.Ct. 1972, 155 L.Ed.2d 953 (2003) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted) (identifying various instances of unconstitutional state discrimination on the basis of gender, which provided Congress with the authority to respond with FMLA, remedial and prophylactic legislation passed under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment). Hibbs strongly supports plaintiffs' argument that singling out abortion in ways unrelated to the facts distinguishing abortion from other medical procedures is an unconstitutional form of discrimination on the basis of gender. 64 However, Congress, in enacting section 5 legislation, can respond to state action that is unconstitutional regardless of whether a court would be capable of adjudicating that unconstitutionality. See, e.g., Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 649-50, 86 S.Ct. 1717, 16 L.Ed.2d 828 (1966). Thus, Hibbs does not compel the conclusion that this is the sort of discrimination a court can remedy, given the nature of judicial deference to legislative distinctions embodied in equal protection and undue burden jurisprudence. 65 On the other hand, courts have taken notice of the fact that the right to obtain an abortion is tied to the right to be free from sex discrimination in a manner unlike any other medical service that only one gender seeks. Abortion is unique in that [t]he ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. Casey, 505 U.S. at 856, 112 S.Ct. 2791. However, even if laws singling out abortion can be judicially recognized as not gender-neutral, where such laws facially promote maternal health or fetal life, Casey replaces the intermediate scrutiny such a law would normally receive under the equal protection clause with the undue burden standard. 66 In fact, elements of intermediate scrutiny review particular to sex-based classifications, such as the rules against paternalism and sex-stereotyping, J.E.B., 511 U.S. at 132, 114 S.Ct. 1419; Frontiero, 411 U.S. at 684, 93 S.Ct. 1764, are evident in the Casey opinion, and should be considered by courts assessing the legitimacy of abortion regulation under the undue burden standard. See Casey, 505 U.S. at 882, 112 S.Ct. 2791 (approving only of information provided to a woman seeking an abortion that is truthful and not misleading); id. at 898, 112 S.Ct. 2791 (A State may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over their children. Section 3209 embodies a view of marriage consonant with the common-law status of married women but repugnant to our present understanding of marriage and of the nature of the rights secured by the Constitution.). 67 But given that Casey reaffirms the state's interest in regulating to serve maternal health and promote fetal life, these interests would generally be significant enough to justify sex discrimination under the intermediate scrutiny standard. Therefore, we hold that when the state interest asserted to support a law singling out abortion from comparably risky procedures sought by men is maternal health, it is not necessary to determine whether the classification should be deemed gender-neutral, because the interests at stake should be balanced by simply applying the Casey undue burden standard. This is particularly appropriate because the burden on women engendered by the classification arises entirely out of the burden on abortion, as a service only women seek. 68 Since maternal health is asserted as the state interest justifying the regulation, and since no material issue of fact regarding an invidious purpose behind the regulatory scheme has been created, this claim is not judicially cognizable separately from the undue burden claim, which we have addressed above.