Court Opinion

ID: 9637706
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:16:23.568597+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:59.465137
License: Public Domain

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge:
Isadore I. Rosen, a physician licensed to practice medicine under the laws of Louisiana, challenges the constitutionality of the Louisiana statute authorizing the suspension or revocation of a medical doctor’s certificate when the doctor has committed or participated in the commission of an abortion that is unnecessary to the relief of a woman whose life appears in peril. He seeks an injunction restraining the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners (Medical Board) from enforcing La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 37:1285 in proceedings being brought against him and a judgment declaring section 37:1285(6) unconstitutional.
This three-judge district court was convened to consider the issues raised by Dr. Rosen’s complaint, 28 U.S.C. § 2281, and a hearing was held on the merits of the ease. We hold that section 37:1285(6) is constitutional and deny plaintiff’s request for declaratory and injunctive relief.
I.
The Louisiana Medical Practice Act, La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 37:1261 et seq., authorizes the Medical Board to suspend or institute court proceedings to revoke a doctor’s certificate to practice medicine in the State when the doctor has procured or aided or abetted in the procuring of an abortion, “unless done for the relief of a woman whose life appears in peril after due consultation with another licensed physician.” La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 37:1285(6). On November 12, 1969, the Medical Board informed Dr. Rosen of its intent to conduct a hearing on charges that Dr. Rosen has on several occasions committed or aided in the commission of abortions without legal justification for so doing. A hearing was originally scheduled for December 12, 1969. This lawsuit followed. We have jurisdiction to decide the case. E. g., Roe v. Wade, N.D.Tex., 1970, 314 F.Supp. 1217; Babbitz v. McCann, E.D. Wis., 1970, 310 F.Supp. 293.
*1220The complaint charges that section 37:1285(6) of the Louisiana Revised Statutes is unconstitutional for violating the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and for invading the pregnant woman’s right of privacy. The Medical Board argues initially that this Court should abstain from making a decision on the merits of plaintiff’s request for a declaratory judgment. Under the circumstances of this case, we conclude that abstention would not be warranted. See, e. g., Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 88 S.Ct. 391, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967); Roe v. Wade, N.D. Tex., 1970, 314 F.Supp. 1217; Babbitz v. McCann, E.D.Wis., 1970, 310 F.Supp. 293. We therefore reach the merits of Dr. Rosen’s argument. For reasons that follow, we conclude that the doctor’s attack upon the constitutionality of section 37:1285(6) must fail. .
II.
The doctor urges that section 37:1285 (6) of the Louisiana Revised Statutes is unconstitutionally vague and indefinite because it fails to provide both fair warning to doctors and sufficient precision to guide the Medical Board, judges, and juries regarding the physical or mental conditions that justify an induced abortion under Louisiana law. This section provides for the removal of a physician’s certification for “ [procuring, aiding, or abetting in procuring an abortion unless done for the relief of a woman whose life appears in peril after due consultation with another licensed physician.” Rosen argues that the words “relief of a woman whose life appears in peril” do not provide meaningful guidance to the ordinary physician since the statute forbids abortions in terms “so vague that men of common intelligence must - necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.” Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391, 46 S.Ct. 126, 127, 70 L.Ed. 322 (1926); accord, Lanzetta v. State of New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 59 S.Ct. 618, 83 L.Ed. 888 (1939). He also argues that uncertainty in the medical profession regarding the legality of certain medically indicated abortions is a constitutional defect in the statute as applied.
We have examined the challenged language and are persuaded that it is neither vague nor indefinite, but is instead reasonably comprehensible in its meaning, with its reach delineated in words of common understanding. See Babbitz v. McCann, E.D.Wis., 1970, 310 F.Supp. 293, 297-298; cf. Cameron v. Johnson, 390 U.S. 611, 616, 88 S.Ct. 1335, 1338, 20 L.Ed.2d 182 (1968). The clause “unless done for the relief of a woman whose life appears in peril” requires no guessing at its meaning. Rosen focuses upon the words “relief,” “appears,” and “life.” These are widely used and well understood words, particularly when read in the context of section 37:1285(6). We conclude that the statute was intended to permit an induced abortion of an embryo or fetus only when the physician, after due consultation with another licensed physician, determines in good faith that continuation of the pregnancy will directly and proximately result in the death of the woman. In our opinion, the statute so read provides fair warning that Louisiana does not suffer the performance of all medically indicated abortions, however wise in the physician’s estimation such an operation might be in a particular ease, but rather allows the induced abortion of an embryo or fetus to be performed without sanction only when the life of the mother is directly endangered by the condition of pregnancy itself.
Four recent cases dealing with the constitutionality of abortion statutes have considered the sort of void-for-vagueness argument that Rosen makes against the Louisiana statute. In People v. Belous, 71 Cal.2d 996, 80 Cal.Rptr. 354, 458 P.2d 194 (1969), the California Supreme Court found that the words “necessary to preserve her life” in the California abortion statute then in effect were unconstitutionally vague. The *1221words “for the purpose of saving the life of the mother” in the Texas abortion statute were declared to be similarly defective by a three-judge district court in Roe v. Wade, N.D.Tex., 1970, 314 F.Supp. 1217. The District of Columbia abortion statute was held invalid in United States v. Vuitch, D.D.C., 1969, 305 F.Supp. 1032, on the ground that the word “health” in the phrase “as necessary for the preservation of the mother’s life or health” was vague both in interpretation and practice. The words “necessary to save the life of the mother” in the Wisconsin abortion statute, on the other hand, were held not to be vague or indefinite as to their meaning in Babbitz v. McCann, E.D.Wis., 1970, 310 F.Supp. 293.
Like the Babbitz court, we do not share the view of the majority in Belous that language such as “necessary to preserve [or save] life” is so vague that one must guess at its meaning. See generally Comment, To Be or Not to Be: The Constitutional Question of the California Abortion Law, 118 U.Pa.L.Rev. 643, 644-649 (1970). Consequently, Belous is not persuasive on the issue of vagueness presented in this case. We also do not share the view of the court in Roe that a statute worded similarly to either the Texas or Louisiana acts is unconstitutionally vague because of the difficulty encountered in applying it to particular cases. As the Supreme Court has stated,
“Wherever the law draws a line there will be cases very near each other on opposite sides. The precise course of the line may be uncertain, but no one can come near it without knowing that he does so, if he thinks, and if he does so, it is familiar to the criminal law to make him take the risk.”
United States v. Wurzbach, 280 U.S. 396, 399, 50 S.Ct. 167, 169, 74 L.Ed. 508 (1930); see United States v. Petrillo, 332 U.S. 1, 7, 67 S.Ct. 1538, 1541-1542, 91 L.Ed. 1877 (1947). Moreover, the Louisiana statute makes express what is perhaps only implied in the Texas statute — that the abortion need only appear necessary, rather than actually be necessary to be permissible. Vuitch is readily distinguishable from the present case, since the court there concluded that the word “health,” as distinct from the word “life,” made the District of Columbia statute impermissibly vague. Thus the precise problem considered in Vuitch is not presented under the terms of the Louisiana statute.
In short, we conclude that although Rosen may have medical or even practical justification for his belief that the Louisiana statute too narrowly restricts the circumstances under which an abortion may be induced without sanction, he fails to convince this Court that the Louisiana Legislature was vague or indefinite in its choice of language.
III.
The doctor next contends that the Louisiana statute, even if assumed not to be lacking in either clarity or precision,- is void for “overbreadth,” that is, section 37:1285(6) offends the constitutional principle that “a governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.” Zwickler v. Koota, 389 U.S. 241, 250, 88 S.Ct. 391, 396, 19 L.Ed.2d 444 (1967), citing NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Flowers, 377 U.S. 288, 307, 84 S.Ct. 1302, 1314, 12 L.Ed.2d 325 (1964). Rosen argues that the statute unnecessarily and impermissibly invades his right as a physician to prescribe for his patients in accordance with his best professional knowledge. Specifically, he contends that the statute makes removal of his license a likelihood if, in the course of performing his duties as a physician, he assists a pregnant woman —who has had contraceptive failure or did not utilize contraceptives — in the exercise of what he asserts to be her fundamental, constitutionally protected right to choose whether to bear children. In substance, his argument is that: (1) a woman has a fundamental right, ex*1222cept in very limited circumstances, to be free from unwanted governmental interferences in matters that, by their character and consequences, bear in a basic way upon her privacy, that is, she has a right to be let alone in matters involving her individual privacy; (2) included within her right to be let alone is her right to choose whether to bear children; (3) since the Louisiana statute infringes upon her right of choice in this matter and operates directly upon the physician’s role in the effective exercise of that choice, the statute may be upheld by this Court only upon a showing by the State that such infringement is necessary to support a subordinating state interest which is compelling; and (4) the Louisiana statute sweeps far beyond any areas of compelling, subordinating state interests and is, therefore, invalid. Thus the doctor would have us first determine whether the right to choose to bear or not to bear, children is a fundamental one and then determine whether, if this is a fundamental right, the State has demonstrated a compelling need to infringe upon its exercise.
In our opinion, the issues in dispute here do not resolve themselves neatly into the questions posed by Dr. Rosen. The issues presented are much more complex, for the current controversy over the wisdom and constitutional validity of existing abortion laws centers upon a problem in which attitudes toward life, being, and sexual activity are in tumultuous disagreement. The specifics of the conflict in courts, legislative halls, and journals have often been the details of statutory language. The root disagreement, however, among men of intelligence and good will on all sides of the controversy has arisen over the evaluation of competing interests affected by abortion and the manner in which these interests are to be protected by law in a democratic society. See generally George, Current Abortion Laws: Proposals and Movements for Reform, in Abortion and the Law 1 (Smith ed. 1967); Ziff, Recent Abortion Law Reforms (Or Much Ado About Nothing), 60 J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 3 (1969). Nature alone is responsible for the spontaneous abortion, and she needs no justification. But there remains for the determination by society, by whatever means it has chosen for the making of such momentous decisions, the conditions, if any, under which the embryo or fetus of the species homo sapiens may be destroyed within the womb.
The most recent attacks on abortion legislation, like Dr. Rosen’s, have focused upon the interests of the pregnant woman as being of primary importance. The interests of the family unit, if any, of which the pregnant woman is a part and the needs of the community have also been advanced as reasons for the relaxation or abolition of laws prohibiting abortions. Little or no importance has been attached by these arguments to whatever interests may be possessed by the embryo or fetus the pregnant woman carries. In at least four instances, arguments such as these have been urged successfully. Roe v. Wade, N.D.Tex., 1970, 314 F.Supp. 1217; Babbitz v. McCann, E.D.Wis., 1970, 310 F.Supp. 293; People v. Belous, 71 Cal.2d 996, 80 Cal.Rptr. 354, 458 P.2d 194 (1969); State v. Munson (S.D.Cir.Ct., Pennington County, April 6, 1970). See also United States v. Vuitch, D.D.C., 1969, 305 F.Supp. 1032. In all these cases,, the right asserted by plaintiffs to be free from unwanted governmental interference — freedom of choice in the matter of abortions — was equated by the court with the “fundamental right to choose whether to have children.”
For the purposes of this case we assume, if we are not required to recognize, e. g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965); Baird v. Eisenstadt, 1 Cir., 1970, 429 F.2d 1398, that as a general matter women possess under our Constitution a “fundamental right” to determine whether they shall bear children before they have become pregnant. A state may interfere with this right of choice only in special circumstances. E. *1223g., Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, 47 S.Ct. 584, 71 L.Ed. 1000 (1927). We deal in this case, however, not merely with whether a woman has a generalized right to choose whether to bear children, but instead with the more complicated question whether a pregnant woman has the right to cause the abortion of the embryo or fetus she carries in her womb. We do not find that an equation of the generalized right of the woman to determine whether she shall bear children with the asserted right to abort an embryo or fetus is compelled by fact or logic. Exercise of the right to an abortion on request is not essential to an effective exercise of the right not to bear a child, if a child for whatever reason is not wanted. Abstinence, rhythm, contraception, and sterilization are alternative means to this end. The first is, of course, infallible; the latter three are reliable to varying degrees approaching certainty. Before the “moment” of conception has occurred, see generally Ziff, Recent Abortion Law Reforms (Or Much Ado About Nothing), 60 J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 3, 20-21 (1969), the choice whether or not to bear children is made in circumstances quite different from those in which such a choice might be made after conception. Apart, the sperm and the unfertilized egg will die; neither has the capacity to grow and develop independently as does the fertilized egg. During fertilization, sperm and egg pool their nucleii and chromosomes. Biologically, a living organism belonging to the species homo sapiens is created out of this organization. Genetically, the adult man was from such a beginning all that he essentially has become in every cell and human attribute. See generally Gray, Anatomy of the Human Body 21-60 (Goss 27th ed. 1959); 5 Lawyers’ Medical Cyclopedia § 37.1 (1960). The basic distinction between a decision whether to bear children which is made before conception and one which is made after conception is that the first contemplates the creation of a new human organism, but the latter contemplates the destruction of such an organism already created. To some engaged in the controversy over abortion, this distinction is one without a difference. These men of intelligence and good will do not perceive the human organism in the early part of its life cycle as a human “being” or “person.”1 In their view, the granting to such an organism of the right to survive on a basis of equality with human beings generally should be delayed until a later stage in its development. To others, however, the “moment” of conception or some stage of development very close to this “moment” is the point at which distinctively human life begins.2 In their view the difference be*1224tween the decision not to conceive and the decision to abort is of fundamental, determinative importance. Thus the root problem in the controversy over abortion is the one of assigning value to embryonic and fetal life. See Giannella, The Difficult Quest for a Truly Humane Abortion Law, 13 Vill.L.Rev. 257 (1968).
In considering the problem of valuing prenatal life, we heed the words of Mr. Justice Holmes:
“It is a misfortune if a judge reads his conscious or unconscious sympathy with one side or the other prematurely into the law, and forgets that what seem to him to be first principles are believed by half his fellow men to be wrong * -*
Holmes, Collected Legal Papers 295 (1920). When distinctively human life begins is a matter about which reasonable, fair-minded men are in basic disagreement. Thus this case does not concern simply whether the pregnant woman has a fundamental right to be let alone in the control of her body processes, cf. Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 11 S.Ct. 1000, 35 L.Ed. 734 (1891) (submission to surgical examination), for it is unresolved whether, in the common understanding of the society in which she lives, choice of the destiny of the human organism developing within her is a matter directly affecting only her individual rights. We phrase the question for decision as follows: Can the State of Louisiana, consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment, assign to the human organism in its early prenatal development as embryo and fetus a right to be “born”3 unless the condition of pregnancy directly and proximately threatens the mother’s life? Our inquiry extends to (1) whether, and the extent to which, the State has assigned value to prenatal life, (2) whether the State is empowered to make such an assignment, and (3) whether the State’s valuation is to be recognized for the purposes of this case.
We consider first the pattern of the Louisiana statutes pertaining to abortion. In Louisiana, “abortion” has been a crime since 1870. The 1870 statute, as amended, La.Aets, 1888, No. 24, provided :
“Whoever shall feloniously administer, or cause to be administered, any drug, potion, or any other thing, to any woman for the purpose of procuring a premature delivery, or whoever shall administer, or cause to be administered, to any woman pregnant with child, any drug, potion, or any other thing, for the purpose of procuring abortion or a premature delivery, or whoever by any means whatsoever shall feloniously procure abortion or premature delivery, shall be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than one nor more than ten years.”
We have not been cited to or found any legislative history on this statute. As we read it, the statute made unlawful the described acts if performed with the specific intent to destroy a “child” before its natural birth, regardless of whether the woman was in fact pregnant; that is, attempts to perform the impossible were equated with and treated the same as actual performance. Reworded in 1942 and later amended, the statute reads today: *1225La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 14:87 (Supp.1970). In substance, the Louisiana criminal law on abortion has been unchanged for one hundred years.4
*1224“Abortion is the performance of any of the following acts, with the intent of procuring premature delivery of the embryo or fetus;
(1) Administration of any drug, potion, or any other substance to a female; or
(2) Use of any instrument or any other means whatsoever on a female. “Whoever commits the crime of abortion shall be imprisoned at hard labor for not less than one nor more than ten years.”
*1225In Louisiana, conviction of a crime such as the crime of “abortion” proscribed by section 14:87, and procuring, aiding or abetting in procuring an “abortion” unless done to save the life of the mother are separate grounds upon which the Medical Board may properly refuse to issue, suspend, or institute court proceedings to revoke a certificate to practice medicine to which a physician would otherwise be entitled. La.Acts, 1914, No. 56, § 16, as amended, La.Acts, 1918, No. 54, § 10, codified, La.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 37:1285(1), (6). See also La. Rev.Stat.Ann. § 1271 (qualifications of applicants for certificates). Since sections 14:87 and 37:1285(6) deal with the same subject matter, we construe them together. So doing, we conclude that Louisiana prohibits the performance of certain acts if made' with the intent to destroy an “embryo” or “fetus” before natural “birth,” unless (1) the actor is a physician and (2) the acts are performed for the relief of a woman whose life appears in peril. As used in section 14:87, the terms “embryo” and “fetus” refer to separate stages in prenatal development. State v. Dore, 227 La. 282, 79 So.2d 309 (1955). In medical terminology, “embryo” refers to the developing human organism from one week after conception to approximately the end of the second month. “Fetus” refers to the organism from that point until termination of prenatal development. Dorland, Illustrated Medical Dictionary 439, 500 (23d ed. 1957).5 From conception until the twentieth week of development, expulsion of the embryo or fetus from the womb is not considered by the State to be a “birth.” La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 40:-142(5).
 From a reading of the Louisiana statutes, it is plain that the State has attempted to provide embryonic and fetal organisms with protection against destruction by other than natural causes in at least the second and succeeding weeks of prenatal development, without regard to whether the organism is capable of sustaining life outside the womb. This protection is qualified. The embryo or fetus may legally be destroyed by a physician if the condition of pregnancy, after due consultation with another licensed physician, appears directly and proximately to threaten the woman’s life. Also, section 14:87, as construed, does not make the woman criminally responsible for the destruction of the embryo or fetus she once carried. E. g., Simmons v. Victory Industrial Life Ins. Co. of Louisiana, 18 La.App. 660, 139 So. 68 (1932). With these qualifications, a principal effect of the Louisiana statutes has been a conferment upon the embryonic or fetal organism of a right to survive to a natural termination of prenatal development. Necessarily implicit in this conferment is a valuation of embryonic and fetal life in relation to the life of the infant, the child, and the adult. Regardless of whatever interests the pregnant woman or others may have in ending the life of the embryo or *1226fetus she carries, application of the Louisiana statutes, subject to the above qualifications, results in the subordination of such interests to the policy of the State that prenatal life must be afforded the opportunity to develop toward a natural birth.
In medical terminology, “abortion” genei’ally refers to the premature expulsion from the womb of the embryo or of the nonviable fetus. Dorland, Illustrated Medical Dictionary 4 (23d ed. 1957). As indicated, the Louisiana statutes make no distinction based upon viability in defining “abortion,” that is, upon whether the fetal organism has developed to the stage in which it can sustain life outside the womb or, in the terminology adopted by the State, be “born.” See La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 40:142(5). Dr. Rosen argues that Louisiana has not expressed a policy of preferring the interests of an embryo or nonviable fetus as a “human being” over those of the pregnant woman, family unit, or community. To the contrary, he claims, Louisiana has expressed no interest in the embryo or nonviable fetus. Also, he urges that section 37:1285(6) is unconstitutional because the only “legitimate” purpose for which it, like the 1870 criminal statute and its successors, could have been enacted — protection of the lives and health of pregnant women — is no longer served by its application. Not persuaded by these arguments, we conclude that Louisiana has sufficiently manifested its interest in protecting the embryo or nonviable fetus and that section 37:1285 (6) cannot be voided essentially on the ground that it is no longer wise legislation.
The inevitable effect of the Louisiana statutes in question is to accord embryonic and fetal human life qualified protection against premeditated destruction by persons other than the mother. As we have said, implicit in this affording of protection is the assignment of value to the embryonic or fetal organism as a form of human life. “Subject to specific constitutional limitations, when the legislature has spoken, the public interest has been declared in terms well-nigh conclusive.”6 Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 32, 75 S.Ct. 98, 102, 99 L.Ed. 27 (1954). In our opinion, the State of Louisiana values embryonic or fetal human organisms to the extent that such organisms — forms of human life — are entitled to enjoy in at least some basic respects the right to survive on a basis of equality with human beings generally.
As we have indicated, the protection afforded by Louisiana to the embryo or fetus is not coextensive with the protection afforded to the infant, the child, *1227and the adult. Historically and today, the State has demonstrated a greater concern for life after birth than for life before birth. For example, although Louisiana early adopted the common law as to the definition of crimes, La.Acts, 1805, No. 50, § 33, and abortions were not permitted at common law after fetal “quickening,” see, e. g., Stern, Abortion: Reform and the Law, 59 J.Crim.L. C. & P.S. 84, 85 (1968),7 the principle that all crimes in Louisiana are statutory, e. g., State v. Williams, 7 Rob. 252 (La.1844), meant that abortion was not a crime in this State until the 1870 statute was enacted. In terms of punishment and criminal responsibility also, the State has not equated the destruction of an embryo or fetus with the destruction of an infant, a child, or an adult. For example, the pregnant woman who causes the abortion of the “child” in her womb is not made criminally responsible, and those to whom she turns for an abortion may be imprisoned for no more than ten years for the offense. The mother who causes the death of her infant child, on the other hand, may be convicted of murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide, as the ease may be, with death as the ultimate penalty. La. Rev.Stat.Ann. §§ 14:30-32. These facts suggest, for example, that Louisiana does not equate the equality of the offense of “murder,” La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 14:30, with the quality of an act of abortion. In no meaningful way, however, do they rebut the Medical Board’s contention that, for the past century, the State in its abortion laws has manifested a policy of protecting human life in its embryonic and fetal forms.8
Dr. Rosen argues that the purpose of the Louisiana abortion statutes — other than to compel adherence to specified moral norms9 — is to protect the lives and health of women who believe themselves to be pregnant rather than to protect the embryo or fetus from destruction. Notwithstanding that these laws, when obeyed, do protect the embryo or fetus, it is suggested that, in light of the pattern of the Louisiana statutes and the history of abortion and the law generally, the Louisiana laws are, at best, health measures that no longer promote good health.10
We decline to void section 37:1285(6) essentially on the ground that advances in medical knowledge and surgical techniques have made unwise *1228legislation which the State of Louisiana had the power to enact, and we do not believe that the constitutional validity of statutes turns upon whether legislators make speeches or otherwise manifest their intent that the inevitable effect of statutes, viewed on their face alone, was indeed meant to occur. It is a familiar principle of constitutional law that the federal courts will not strike down an otherwise constitutional statute on the basis of an alleged wrongful legislative motive. E. g., United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 383, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 1682, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968); McCray v. United States, 195 U.S. 27, 56, 24 S.Ct. 769, 776, 49 L.Ed. 78 (1904). Similarly, the federal courts will not void legislation which a State had the power to enact on more than one ground because the alleged dominant motive behind the statute is no longer served by its application. In this ease, we hold that the State of Louisiana was empowered to place a value upon prenatal human life and that the valuation manifested by the Louisiana abortion statutes may not be struck down by this Court.
At issue here is whether the Louisiana abortion statutes, in assigning a value to prenatal life relative to the interests of the pregnant woman, her family unit, if any, and the community, have invaded a realm of private morality which is not the State’s business. Compare Committee on Homosexual Offenses & Prostitution (Wolfenden Committee), Report, CMD. No. 247, ¶ 62 (1957).11 The crime of abortion in Louisiana is classified together with carnal knowledge of, or indecent behavior with, juveniles, prostitution, and the “crime against nature” as “offenses affecting sexual morality.”12 To many in Louisiana, as in other states, a woman who voluntarily causes an abortion of the embryo or fetus she carries “is guilty of a detestible and revolting offense against the laws of nature, which is universally condemned.” Payne v. Louisiana Industrial Life Ins. Co., 33 So.2d 444, 445 (La.Ct.App.1948). See also, e. g., Mills v. Commonwealth, 13 Pa. 631, 632 (1850). To others like Dr. Rosen, on the other hand, the failure to limit procreation by abortion is itself unconscionable and immoral if, for example, offspring are destined to be physically or mentally deformed in some fundamental way, to be undernourished, maleducated- misfits or rebels against society, or to be unwanted or not cared for because of the economic, physical, and psychological dislocations their births and rearing cause in their parents’ lives. We must ask whether abortion, a problem in which attitudes toward life, being, and sexual activity are in such turmoil, is the business of government and the law.
The review of state legislation by the federal courts, whether such legislation is considered to be in the exercise of the State’s police power or in provision for the health, safety, morals, or welfare of its people, concerns the “powers of government inherent in every sovereignty.” The License Cases, 46 U.S. (5 How.) 504, 583, 12 L.Ed. 256, 291 (1847); Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 539, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 1775, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting). The definition of a State’s police power is “essentially the product of legislative determinations addressed to the purposes of government, purposes neither abstractly nor historically capable of complete definition.” Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 32, 75 S.Ct. 98, 102, 99 L.Ed. 27 (1954). The term “police power” connotes the “time-tested conceptual limit of public encroachment upon private interests.” Goldblatt v. Town of Hempstead, N.Y., 369 U.S. 590, 594, 82 S.Ct. 987, 990, 8 L.Ed.2d 130 (1962). The federal courts may interfere with *1229the exercise of this plenary power of government by the States only to the extent that the Constitution so requires. Barron, for Use of Tiernan v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243, 8 L.Ed. 672 (1833).
The abortion problem concerns the circumstances, if any, that justify the termination of the process of procreation after human life, genetically and biologically, has been conceived. This problem involves the condition of pregnancy and its likely consequence, the first entrance of a new player, “mewling and puking,” onto the world stage. Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act ii, sc. 7, 1. 139. In specific cases, the condition of pregnancy, if not terminated, may affect the essential welfare of the woman involved; it may cause her to die before her time, to suffer a serious impairment of her health, to waste her life, to be deeply unhappy, or to be happy in a way that society considers to be less than human.13 Similarly affected may be the essential welfare of the unwanted player once born and the family into which it is born. If the healthy society is viewed as one that not only maintains itself as a going concern, but also, through its free and democratic character, moves in the direction of giving greater scope and expression to those wholesome attributes that set man above the lower species, it may be seen that the abortion problem, if not wisely handled, may in the end impair the good health of the society. But federal judges are not inevitably the source of the wise solution. Under our Constitution, fecjteraT'ludges play a limited role in reviewing the legislation of Congress and the States. We believe that if the passage of a law or a failure to effect its repeal “has ruined a state, there was a general cause at work that made the state ready to perish by a single * * * law.” Holmes, Collected Legal Papers 295 (1920). Thus we view the Louisiana abortion laws.
At least with respect to abortion, as medically defined, in the early, nonviable stages of development, proponents of the abolition or “liberalization” of abortion laws have in the main taken as their premise that distinctively human life, that is, valued life, does not commence at conception or at some point near it, but instead at some later stage of prenatal development, such as the point of viability, or at birth itself. Opponents of abolition or “liberalization” have argued from quite different premises. On balance, when “distinctively human” life begins is a matter of contest not so much between those persons and groups who see an embryo or fetus as a human being and those who do not, although this too is involved, but rather is a matter of contest between conflicting views regarding the importance of mere existence in relation to a high quality or excellence of existence.14 In other words, proponents of abolition or “liberalization” have tended to stress the quality of life after birth rather than the mere existence of life, while their opponents have argued for the transcendence of any life, born or unborn, over the health or happiness of an older or more powerful life. Thus abortion, involving as it does the destruction of, biologically and genetically speaking, a form of human life, raises a basic issue of public interest concerning the value of the human embryo or fetus.
In Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965), the Supreme Court struck down a state statute forbidding the use of contraceptives because the law was found to operate unjustifiably upon one aspect of the intimate relation of husband and wife. From this is largely drawn by *1230Dr. Rosen the argument that a fundamental right of women to choose whether to bear children, after as well as before conception has occurred, must be recognized. In Griswold, however, the Court was not required to sit as a super-legislature or rove at large in light of personal and private notions to conclude that choice in the matter of contraceptives was part of the rights associated with home, family, and marriage, which rights were supported by precedent, history, and common understanding.15 The decision thus operates within a narrow sphere, see Kauper, Penumbras, Peripheries, Emanations, Things Fundamental and Things Forgotten: The Griswold Case, 64 Mich.L.Rev. 235 (1965); its principles, while tending to expand themselves to the limit of their logic, Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process 51 (1921), must be contained by the historical frame of reference of their purpose. Walz v. Tax Commission of City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 678-679, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 1416, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970). In our opinion, whether the problem of abortion is a private one of personal or family morality requires first a resolution of the issue of public concern, that is, whether embryonic and fetal organisms should be afforded an opportunity to survive in at least some basic respects on a basis of equality with human beings generally.
Dr. Rosen has strenuously urged before this Court the social undesirability of the Louisiana abortion laws. We may not, however, while professing to act in the service of humane ends, confound private notions with constitutional imperatives. Even where the social undesirability of a law is not disputed, and this is by no means such a case,16 invalidation of that law by a court debilitates popular democratic government. American Fed. of Labor v. American Sash & Door Co., 335 U.S. 538, 553, 69 S.Ct. 258, 265, 93 L.Ed. 222 (1949) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). We do not share the views of the Courts in Babbitz v. McCann, E.D.Wis., 1970, 310 F.Supp. 293, and Roe v. Wade, N.D.Tex., 1970, 314 F.Supp. 1217, regarding the criteria to be used in testing the constitutionality of abortion legislation. In Babbitz, for example, the Court, holding that the State of Wisconsin had not *1231shown a compelling public necessity for invading a woman’s “right to refuse to carry an embryo during the early months of pregnancy,” concluded: “ * * * [T]he mother’s interests are superior to that of an unquiekened embryo whether the embryo is mere protoplasm, as the plaintiff contends, or a human being, as the Wisconsin statute declares.” 310 F.Supp. at 301. This conclusion, we believe, is not mandated by the Constitution.
A reading of current and historical writings on the abortion problem convinces us that Babbitz and Roe ^ere^decided upon theories of life and being which a large part of this country does not entertain.17 “[T]he word ‘liberty,’ in the 14th Amendment, is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law.” Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76, 25 S.Ct. 539, 547, 49 L.Ed. 937 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting). We are not persuaded that the Louisiana abortion laws infringe any fundamental principle as understood by the traditions of our people. As an ethical, moral, or religious matter, a woman’s refusal to carry an embryo or fetus to term, both historically and today, has been condemned as wrong by a substantial, if not a dominant, body of opinion, except in very limited circumstances.18 Common science of our people that it must be *1232convictions and attitudes are subject to change, of course, and the valuation of embryonic and fetal life urged by Dr. Rosen may prove ultimately to be supported by common understanding, but we do not find that his valuation is so supported today.
Section 37:1285(6) of the Louisiana Revised Statutes, we conclude, does not offend the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We do not recognize the asserted right of a woman to choose to destroy the embryo or fetus she carries as being so rooted in the traditions and collective conscience of our people that it must be ranked as “fundamental.” The valuation of embryonic and fetal organisms made by the State of Louisiana is supported by scientific fact. Because we further find that section 37:1285(6) is necessary to the accomplishment of a permissible state policy, we must decline plaintiff’s invitation to void this, law.19
Judgment will be entered in favor of defendant, dismissing plaintiff’s suit.
Before AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge, and BOYLE and CASSIBRY, District Judges.

. The views following are illustrative: “My feeling is that the fetus, particularly during its early intra-uterine life, is simply a group of specialized cells that do not differ materially from other cells. * * * And I feel that if it is going to be for the welfare of the adult individual, and for society in certain instances, we are justified in eliminating those cells. I do not think that I could be catalogued as a murderer. I just feel that under certain conditions the elimination of life of this type is justified. If one can justify shooting a burglar who enters your room, or going to war and shooting an enemy, one can certainly justify the elimination of some cells, which, from my point of view, have not yet become a human being, but simply have the potentialities of life. * * * ”
Statement of Dr. Alan F. Guttmaeber, in Symposium — Law, Morality, and Abortion, 22 Rutgers L.Rev. 415, 436 (1968) ;
“ * * * Physicians as a whole do not believe that a human being begins at conception. I know of no non-Oatholic scientist who does. I know of no scientist at all, no scientist in any field of biological science, who would say that an acorn, the second that that acorn has been fertilized, is an oak. It is a potential oak; it is not an oak. And a fertilized ovum is not a human being. * * >>
Statement of Dr. Harold Rosen, in id. at 426.

. For example, this is the official Roman Catholic position. E. g., Drinan, The Inviolability of the Right To Be Born, in Abortion and the Law 107 (Smith ed. *12241967) ; Statement of Thomas J. O’Donnell, S. J., in Symposium — Law, Morality, and Abortion, 22 Rutgers L.Rev. 415, 431-432 (1968).

. As used here, the term “bom” refers to delivery from the womb after the developing human organism is capable of sustaining life outside the womb. See La. Rev.Stat.Ann. § 40:142.

. Section 14:87 was amended in 1964 to provide, as did the 1870 statute, that commission of the crime of abortion does not depend upon whether the woman is actually pregnant, so long as the requisite unlawful intent is present. From 1942 until 1964, an attempt to perform an abortion on a woman who was not pregnant apparently was punishable as an “attempt,” rather than as a crime of abortion.

. Although Louisiana law is clear to the effect that “embryo” and “fetus” refer to separate stages of prenatal development, there is no Louisiana law on the question whether “embryo,” as used in section 14:87, refers to the “zygote” as well as to the “embryo,” as used in medical terminology. If the statute uses “embryo” in its technical medical sense, the induced expulsion of the “zygote” from the womb in the first week of development would not be an “abortion” under section 14 :87, because the section deals with the “embryo” and the “fetus.” We note this question without comment since its resolution is unnecessary to the disposition of this case.

. The abortion statutes are not the only laws in which Louisiana has manifested its concern with the problem of valuing prenatal life. In Louisiana, “Children in the mother’s womb are considered, in whatever relates to themselves, as if they were already born; thus the inheritances which devolve to them before their birth, and which may belong to them, are kept for them, and curators are assigned to take care of their estates for their benefit.” La.Civ.Code Ann. art. 29. In the matter of successions, for example, the “child in its mother’s womb is considered as born for all purposes of its own interest; it takes all successions opened in its favor since its conception, provided it be capable of succeeding at the moment of its birth.” La.Civ.Code Ann. art. 954. It is true, as Dr. Rosen points out, that the right to inherit vests only in children born alive, regardless of the mode of birth and the length of life after birth, La.Civ. Code Ann. arts. 956, 957, and “Children born dead are considered as if they had never been born or conceived.” La.Civ. Code Ann. art. 28. Prom this the doctor argues that the abortion of an embryo or nonviable fetus would do no violence to the existing Louisiana law of successions. See Comment, Abortion and the Law: A Proposal for Reform in Louisiana, 43 Tul.L.Rev. 834, 850-851 (1969). Whether this árgument is correct or not is beside the point. Read together, the abortion and succession statutes manifest a coherent policy: The “child in its mother’s womb” (embryo or fetus) is afforded certain rights by the State, the enjoyment of which vests upon live birth; the abortion statutes afford the embryo or fetus a qualified opportunity to be born alive in order to enjoy rights such as that of inheritance.

. See also 3 Coke, Third Inst. 50 (1797) ; 1 Blackstone, Commentaries Comm. 1, 129-130 (4th ed. 1771) ; Perkins, Criminal Law 101 (1957).

. In Louisiana, “homicide” is the killing of a “human being,” and criminal homicide is either murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide. La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 14:29. Since the destruction of an embryo or fetus is not a homicide under Louisiana law, it has been argued that the State does not consider embryonic and fetal life forms as “human beings.” Though destruction of an embryo or fetus under Louisiana law is not considered a homicide so that the perpetrator of its destruction is punishable as a “murderer,” it does not follow from the principle that “murder” and “abortion” are distinct crimes under state law that the Louisiana Legislature did not consider embryo and fetus as forms of human life. We may not ascribe to the legislature ignorance of biological realities, \ nor should we, at the same time, require its express manifestation that it was aware of these realities.

. The enactment of abortion legislation in the last century has been attributed to the influences of “comstockery.” 5 Harv. Civ.Rights-Civ.Lib.L.Rev. 133, 144 (1970). Anthony Comstock, who inspired the use of the opprobrious word “comstockery,” was, of course, a man to whom obscenity was “poison to soul and body, and anything remotely touching upon sex was * * * obscene.” Broun & Leech, Anthony Comstock 265-266 (1927), in Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 520 n. 10, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 1764-1765 n. 10, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (1961) (Brennan, J., concurring).

. See, e. g., Tietze, Mortality With Contraception and Induced Abortion, 45 Studies in Family Planning 6 (1969) ; Tietze, Abortion Laws and Abortion Practices in Europe, Excerpta Medica International Congress Series No. 207 (1969) ; People v. Belous, 71 Cal.2d 954, 965, 80 Cal.Rptr. 354, 361, 458 P.2d 194, 201 (1969).

. See also Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals 1-25 (1965) ; Sutherland, Constitutionalism in America 527-536 (1965) ; Henkin, Morals and the Constitution : The Sin of Obscenity, 63 Colum.L.Rev. 391 (1963) ; Schwartz, Morals Offenses and the Model Penal Code, 63 Colum.L.Rev. 669 (1963).

. La.Rev.Stat.Ann. §§ 14:80-89.

. The concepts of “essential welfare” and of the “healthy society” mentioned here are taken from Banfield, The Unheavenly City, 10-11 (1968).

. See generally Drinan, The Morality of Abortion Laws, in Symposium — Abortion Law Reform, 14 Catholic Lawyer 180 (1968) ; Jakobovits, Jewish Views on Abortion, in Abortion and the Law 142 (Smith ed. 1967).

. For example, the Court had previously held that the liberty entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment includes the right “to marry, establish a home and bring up children,” Meyer v. State of Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 43 S.Ct. 625, 626, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923), and the “liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names, etc., 268 U.S. 510, 534-535, 45 S.Ct. 571, 573, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925). In Skinner v. State of Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 62 S.Ct. 1110, 86 L.Ed. 1655 (1942), the Court struck down an Oklahoma statute providing for the compulsory sterilization of “habitual criminals” on the ground that the statute invidiously discriminated between persons who had committed intrinsically the same quality of offense by sterilizing the one and not the other. To emphasize its view that “strict scrutiny of the classification which a State makes in a sterilization law is essential,” the Court noted that it dealt “with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race. The power to sterilize, if exercised, may have subtle, far-reaching and devastating effects. * * * ” 316 U.S. at 541, 62 S.Ct. at 1113. Finally, in Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166, 64 S.Ct. 438, 442, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944), the Court stated:
“It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state can neither supply nor hinder. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra. And it is in recognition of this that these decisions have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter.”

. Considerations of geopolitics, economy, tinkering with natural ecology, genocide, and sociology have been advanced in arguments against the broadening of circumstances under which abortion is permissible. See generally, e. g., Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality (1970).

. The attitudes of a society are reflected, at least to some extent, by the statutes it enacts. In 1965, the abortion legislation of the several States might have been roughly classified as those that, in form, prohibited all abortions and those that permitted abortions under carefully limited circumstances. George, Abortion Laws: Proposals and Movements for Reform, in Abortion and the Law 1 (Smith ed. 1967). A review of state legislation today suggests that attitudes toward abortion are in a state of transition, and discussion of the abortion problem is certainly no longer taboo. See Clark, Religion, Morality, and Abortion: A Constitutional Appraisal, 2 Loyola U.L.A.L.Rev. 1 (1969).

. Views from the ranks of organized religion reflect that abortion has been considered morally wrong, except in very limited circumstances. The circumstances that justify abortion vary from religion to religion and denomination to denomination, and it appears that, on balance, attitudes toward abortion are in a state of transition. The official Roman Catholic position is well known. One Roman Catholic commentator has stated that “ * * * Catholic moral theology and philosophy have retained, more than the teaching of most other religious denominations, the traditional, and until recently, unchallenged view that abortion is the taking of the life of an unborn but, neverthless, a real human being.” Drinan, The Inviolability of the Right To Be Born, in Abortion and the Law 107-108 (Smith ed. 1967). The Lutheran Church apparently opposes abortion for any reason, while the Presbyterian Church, at least until recently, has favored abortion only to save the mother’s life. Reliance is placed upon the individual conscience by the Unitarian and Episcopal Churches, and the Southern Baptist Church has not taken an official position. Rosen, Abortion in America 154-161 (2d ed. 1967). The Orthodox Jewish position will permit abortion if necessary to save the mother’s life, and even a remote risk of life invokes “all the life-saving concessions of Jewish law, provided the fear of such a risk is genuine and confirmed by the most competent medical opinions.” Jakobovits, Jewish Views on Abortion, in Abortion and the Law 124, 143 (Smith ed. 1967). For example, the “Jewish concern for the mother is so great that a gravid woman sentenced to death must not be subjected to the ordeal of suspense to await ,the delivery of her child.” Id. at 142-143. In contrast, the common law has long known the writ de ventre inspiciendo authorizing matrons or “discreet women” to inspect the body of a woman to determine if she is pregnant. This writ was issued, for example, to determine before a hanging whether a convicted female was pregnant. If a child was found to be “alive in the womb,” that is, “quick,” execution was stayed generally until the child was born or by the course of nature it proved that the woman was not pregnant at all. 4 Blackstone, Commentaries Comm. 1, 395 (4th ed. 1771). Conservative and Reform Jews apparently regard abortion far *1232more liberally than do Orthodox Jews. Hall, Commentary, in Abortion and the Law 224, 232 (Smith ed. 1967).
The mere assertion, of course, that the action of the State finds justification in the controversial realm of morals “cannot justify alone any and every restriction it imposes. See Alberts v. State of California, 354 U.S. 476, 77 S.Ct. 1304, 1 L.Ed.2d 1498. * * *
“Yet the very inclusion of the category of morality among state concerns indicates that society is not limited in its objects only to the physical well-being of the community, but has traditionally concerned itself with the moral soundness of its people as well. Indeed to attempt a line between public behavior and that which is purely consensual or solitary would be to withdraw from community concern a range of subjects with which every society in civilized times has found it necessary to deal. The laws regarding marriage which provide both when the sexual powers may be used and the legal and societal context in which children are born and brought up, as well as the laws forbidding adultery, fornication and homosexual practices which express the negative of the proposition, confining sexuality to lawful marriage, form a pattern so deeply pressed into the substance of our social life that any Constitutional doctrine in this area must build upon that basis. * * * ”
Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 545-546, 81 S.Ct. 1752, 1778, 6 L.Ed.2d 989 (1961) (Harlan, J., dissenting); of. Walz v. Tax Commission of City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 677-678, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 1415-1416, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970).

. As Mr. Justice Clark has said,
“It is for the legislature to determine the proper balance, i. e., that point between prevention of conception and viability of fetus which would give the State the compelling subordinating interest so that it may regulate or prohibit abortion without violating the individual’s constitutionally protected rights.”
Clark, Religion, Morality, and Abortion: A Constitutional Appraisal, 2 Loyola U. L.A.L.Rev. 1, 11 (1969). Whether the State of Louisiana, as defendant suggests, has a constitutional duty under the Fourteenth Amendment to protect embryonic or fetal life from destruction by induced abortion is a question we do not consider in the disposition of this case, and we intimate no opinion on its merits.
We have carefully considered Dr. Rosen’s contention that section 37:1285(6) denies to him, as well as certain classes of pregnant women, and poor pregnant women generally, equal protection of the laws, which is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, we have considered the argument that an affluent woman, whether by legal or illegal means, has a better opportunity than a poor one to obtain an abortion at little risk to her life or health. We are, however, unwilling to equate the types of inequality suggested by Dr. Rosen with a denial of a protected right under the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, we reject plaintiff’s equal protection argument.