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

Heading: Equal Protection Under the Federal Constitution

Text: In order to understand the higher standard demanded by the state constitution, it is important to review the basis of the holding that the federal constitution does not prevent the states from imposing this condition on funding for indigent medical care. In Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 100 S.Ct. 2671, 65 L.Ed.2d 784 (1980), the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, established that federal equal protection doctrine did not prohibit the federal government from enacting a federal statute, the Hyde Amendment, that denies federal reimbursement for the procedures at issue here. In reaching that conclusion, the majority relied on prevailing federal equal protection doctrine. The only Equal Protection Clause in the federal constitution is found in the Fourteenth Amendment which imposes limitations on state legislation, but does not apply to federal statutes. Indeed, until 1954, it was accepted dogma that there was no equal protection doctrine applicable to federal legislation. Kenneth L. Karst, The Fifth Amendment Guarantee of Equal Protection, 55 N.C. L.Rev. 541, 542 (1971); see, e.g., Detroit Bank v. United States, 317 U.S. 329, 337, 63 S.Ct. 297, 87 L.Ed. 304 (1943). The Supreme Court for the first time found equal protection applicable to a federal law in a companion case to Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954). Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497, 74 S.Ct. 693, 98 L.Ed. 884 (1954) addressed segregation in the schools of the District of Columbia. Because the District of Columbia was a federal enclave and not a state, the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply. The Supreme Court unanimously held that the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment required no less than the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, finding it unthinkable that the federal government could impose distinctions that the Constitution forbids to the states. By the mid 1970's, it had become accepted that the equal protection doctrine developed under the Fourteenth Amendment with respect to state laws applied equally to federal legislation. See, e.g., Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 93, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976). [3] It was within this legal framework that Harris upheld the federal Hyde Amendment in 1980. The four-Justice majority in Harris first found that the Hyde Amendment did not itself impinge on a right or liberty protected by the [federal] Constitution. Id. at 322, 100 S.Ct. 2671. This was based on the conclusion, in addressing claims under the federal Due Process Clause, that although there is a federal constitutional right to elect an abortion under Roe v. Wade , there is no federal constitutional right to receive funding for an abortion. Because no federal constitutional right was impinged, and indigent pregnant women were not a suspect class, the majority in Harris evaluated the federal equal protection claim under the standard taken from McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 81 S.Ct. 1101, 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961): the classification must be sustained unless it rests on grounds wholly irrelevant to the achievement of [any legitimate governmental] objective. Harris, 448 U.S. at 322, 100 S.Ct. 2671 (brackets in original). The majority recognized a legitimate governmental interest in protecting human life by subsidizing the medical expenses of indigent women who carry their pregnancies to term while not subsidizing the comparable expenses of women who undergo abortions. Id. at 325, 100 S.Ct. 2671. Accordingly, the Harris majority held that nothing in the federal equal protection doctrine prevents a state from refusing to fund medically necessary abortions for indigent women. The majority thus relied on the prevailing rationality test for federal equal protection: a legislative classification requires only a rational relationship to any legitimate governmental interest. John E. Nowak & Ronald D. Rotunda, Constitutional Law § 14.3, at 644 (6th ed. 2000). Four Justices dissented in Harris, taking the view that the Hyde Amendment and its consequent state implementations imposed an impermissible burden on the exercise of a woman's constitutionally protected right to choose. For that reason, some of the dissenters did not address the federal equal protection claims raised in that case. Justice Marshall, however, did find both due process and equal protection violations in a scheme that provides government funding for one choice, but not for the other, when the right to make that election is itself constitutionally protected. In addition to placing an impermissible burden on the exercise of a constitutionally protected right in violation of the federal Due Process Clause, Justice Marshall concluded that the classification effected by the statute did not pass the federal equal protection test formulated by the majority. In his view, the asserted governmental interestprotection of human lifewas not rational as that term is used in equal protection doctrine because it is, as a matter of federal constitutional law, subordinate to the individual women's interest in preserving their lives and health by obtaining medically necessary treatment. Harris, 448 U.S. at 346, 100 S.Ct. 2701. I agree that the Harris majority identified a legitimate governmental interest in promotion of human life. This is a factor supporting the policy found in both the federal Hyde Amendment and the Indiana statute at issue here. The state has a second valid consideration in its concern for public expenditures. The federal government has elected not to participate in funding of medical procedures to terminate these pregnancies. The result is the state bears all of any cost, not merely approximately thirty-eight percent. The parties cite various studies suggesting that funding abortion would have a financial impact of zero or even a positive effect on total federal and state Medicaid expenses. This conclusion is based on comparisons to the cost of delivering the child and bearing its subsequent health-care costs. Thus, the federal decision to deny benefits may indeed rely solely on social policy, not financial considerations. However on this record I cannot conclude that the State's claimed financial concerns are a sham. Evaluation of that factor is therefore a matter for the legislature. Given that the federal scheme embodied in the Hyde Amendment treats these pregnancies differently than it does all other medically necessary procedures, plaintiffs have not established that it is fiscally irrational for the state legislature to refuse to underwrite the entire expense rather than the sixty-two percent it bears for all other medical expenses. As the majority points out, the legislature is entitled to substantial deference in drawing lines where judgment is required in balancing competing interests. For both these reasons, I agree that under the rationality test adopted by the Harris majority, which requires only some minimal governmental interest in the absence of a suspect class or a directly infringed constitutional right, no federal equal protection violation is to be found. But both the analysis and the result are different under the Indiana Constitution.