Court Opinion

ID: 9429251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:11.702782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:18.326001
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
Prior to this Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), it was a felony to perform any abortion in Virginia except in a hospital accredited by the Joint Committee on Accreditation of Hospitals and licensed by the Department of Health, and with the approval of the hospital’s Abortion Review Board (a committee of three physicians).* In 1975, the Virginia Code was amended to authorize additional abortions, including any second-trimester abortion performed by a physician “in a hospital licensed by the State Department of Health or under the control of the State Board of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.” Va. Code § 18.2-73 (1982).
The amended statute might be interpreted in either of two ways. It might be read to prohibit all second-trimester abortions except those performed in a full-service, acute-care hospital facility. Or it might be read to permit any abortion performed in a facility licensed as a “hospital” in accord with any regulations subsequently adopted by the Department of *521Health. The Court today chooses the latter interpretation. See ante, at 512-514.
There is reason to think the Court may be wrong. At the time the statute was enacted, there were no regulations identifying abortion clinics as “hospitals.” The structure of the 1975 amendment suggests that the Virginia General Assembly did not want to make any greater change in its law than it believed necessary to comply with Roe v. Wade, and it may well have thought a full-service, acute-care hospitalization requirement constitutionally acceptable. Moreover, the opinion below does not suggest that the Supreme Court of Virginia believed the term “hospital” to incorporate licensed abortion clinics. It only discussed testimony pertaining to full-service, acute-care hospitals like Fairfax Hospital. See 221 Va. 1059, 1073, 277 S. E. 2d 194, 203. And it stated that “two hospitals in Northern Virginia and 24 hospitals located elsewhere in the State were providing abortion services in 1977,” id., at 1075, 277 S. E. 2d, at 204, again referring to acute-care facilities. The opinion refers to “clinics” only once, as part of a general statement concerning the variety of medical care facilities the State licenses and regulates; even there, the term is included in the list as a category that is distinct from “hospitals.” Id., at 1074, 277 S. E. 2d, at 204.
On the other hand, the Court may well be correct in its interpretation of the Virginia statute. The word “hospital” in § 18.2-73 could incorporate by reference any institution licensed in accord with Va. Code §32.1-123.1 (1979) and its implementing regulations. See ante, at 512-514. It is not this Court’s role, however, to interpret state law. We should not rest our decision on an interpretation of state law that was not endorsed by the court whose judgment we are reviewing. The Virginia Supreme Court’s opinion was written on the assumption that the Commonwealth could constitutionally require all second-trimester abortions to be performed in a full-service, acute-care hospital. Our decision today in City of *522Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., ante, p. 416, proves that assumption to have been incorrect. The proper disposition of this appeal is therefore to vacate the judgment of the Supreme Court of Virginia and to remand the case to that court to reconsider its holding in the light of our opinion in Akron.
I respectfully dissent.

 An in-hospital abortion was also unlawful unless (a) it was necessary to protect the life or health of the mother, (b) the pregnancy was the product of rape or incest, or (c) there was a substantial medical likelihood that the child would be bom with an irremediable and incapacitating mental or physical defect. 1970 Va. Acts, ch. 508.