NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the constitutionality of several Pennsylvania state regulations regarding abortion was challenged. The Court's lead plurality opinion upheld the right to have an abortion but lowered the standard for analyzing restrictions of that right, invalidating one regulation but upholding the others. Image File history File links Seal_of_the_United_States_Supreme_Court. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the... This article is about Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ... â€œRobert Caseyâ€ redirects here. ... The Federal Supplement is a case law reporter published by West Publishing in the United States that includes select opinions of the United States district courts. ... The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is one of the original 13 federal judiciary districts created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, and originally sat in Independence Hall in Philadelphia as the U.S. District Court for the District of Pennsylvania. ... The Federal Reporter is a case law reporter in the United States that is published by West Publishing. ... The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States District Courts: District of Delaware District of New Jersey Western, Middle, and Eastern Districts of Pennsylvania District of the United States Virgin Islands The court is based at... William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 â€“ September 3, 2005) was an American lawyer, jurist, and a political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the Chief Justice of the United States. ... Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 â€“ April 15, 2002) won fame both as a football running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 â€“ March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ... John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is currently the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Sandra Day OConnor (born March 26, 1930) is an American jurist who served as the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. ... Antonin Gregory Scalia (born March 11, 1936[1]) is an American jurist and the second most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... This article is about the Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. ... David Hackett Souter (born September 17, 1939) has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1990. ... Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist and has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. ... â€œFirst Amendmentâ€ redirects here. ... Amendment XIV in the National Archives The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XIV) is one of the post-Civil War amendments (known as the Reconstruction Amendments), first intended to secure rights for former slaves. ... // The United States Reports, the official reporter of the Supreme Court of the United States Case citation is the system used in common law countries such as the United States, England and Wales, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Australia and India to uniquely identify the location of past court... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the... Constitutionality is the status of a law, a procedure, or an acts accordance with the laws or guidelines set forth in the applicable constitution. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ... Federal courts Supreme Court Circuit Courts of Appeal District Courts Elections Presidential elections Midterm elections Political Parties Democratic Republican Third parties State & Local government Governors Legislatures (List) State Courts Local Government Other countries Atlas US Government Portal A U.S. state is any one of the fifty subnational entities of...

Background of the case

Five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act were being challenged as unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, which first recognized a constitutional right to have an abortion in the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The "informed consent" rule under the Act required doctors to provide women with information about the health risks and possible complications of having an abortion before one could be performed. The "spousal notification" rule required women to give prior notice to their husbands, and the "parental consent" rule required minors to receive consent from a parent or guardian prior to an abortion. The fourth provision imposed a 24-hour waiting period before obtaining an abortion. The fifth provision challenged in the case was the imposition of certain reporting requirements on facilities providing abortion services. When the case came before the Court, Pennsylvania defended the Act in part by urging the Court to overturn Roe as having been wrongly decided. Holding Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to get an abortion violated her due process rights. ... In United States law, adopted from English Law, due process (more fully due process of law) is the principle that the government must respect all of a persons legal rights instead of just some or most of those legal rights when the government deprives a person of life, liberty... Amendment XIV in the National Archives The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XIV) is one of the post-Civil War amendments (known as the Reconstruction Amendments), first intended to secure rights for former slaves. ...

The case was a seminal one in the history of abortion rights in the United States. It was the first direct challenge of Roe since the two most liberal Justices, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, were replaced with the Bush-appointed Justices David Souter and Clarence Thomas. Both were viewed as ostensible conservatives compared to their predecessors. This left the Court with eight Republican-appointed justices - five of whom had been appointed by Presidents Reagan and Bush, declared abortion opponents. Finally, the only remaining Democratic appointee - Justice Byron White - had been one of the two dissenters from the original Roe decision. Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States. ... William Joseph Brennan, Jr. ... Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 â€“ January 24, 1993) was an American jurist and the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. ... George H. W. Bush - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... David Hackett Souter (born September 17, 1939) has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1990. ... Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist and has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. ... Reagan redirects here. ... Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 â€“ April 15, 2002) won fame both as a football running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...

At this point, only two of the Justices were obvious supporters of Roe v. Wade: Blackmun, the author of Roe, and Stevens, who had joined several opinions interpreting Roe broadly. Given these circumstances, even most pro-choice advocates expected Roe to be overruled and were gearing up for a subsequent state-by-state campaign against the passage of particular anti-abortion laws. Holding Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to get an abortion violated her due process rights. ... Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 â€“ March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ... John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is currently the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ...

The case was argued by ACLU attorney Kathryn Kolbert for Planned Parenthood. Pennsylvania attorney general Ernest Preate, Jr. argued the case for the State. In the Supreme Court oral arguments, Solicitor General Kenneth Starr spoke for the Bush Administration. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is the common name for an American organization consisting of two separate entities. ... Kenneth Winston Starr Kenneth Winston Starr (born July 21, 1946) is an American lawyer and former judge who was appointed to the Office of the Independent Counsel to investigate the death of the deputy White House counsel Vince Foster and the Whitewater land transactions by President Bill Clinton. ...

The District Court's ruling

The plaintiffs were five abortion clinics and a class action of physicians who provide abortion services, in addition to one physician representing himself independently. They filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to enjoin the state from enforcing the four provisions and have them declared facially unconstitutional. The District Court, after a three-day bench trial, held that all the provisions were unconstitutional and entered a permanent injunction against Pennsylvania's enforcement of them. In law, a class action is an equitable procedural device used in litigation for determining the rights of and remedies, if any, for large numbers of people whose cases involve common questions of law and fact. ... The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania is one of the original 13 federal judiciary districts created by the Judiciary Act of 1789, and originally sat in Independence Hall in Philadelphia as the U.S. District Court for the District of Pennsylvania. ... Look up Injunction in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A declaratory judgment is a judgment of a court which declares what rights each party in a dispute should have, but does not order any action or result in any legal damages. ...

Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision

The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, upholding all of the regulations except for the husband notification requirement. Then-Circuit Judge Samuel Alito sat on that three-judge appellate panel and dissented from the court's invalidation of that requirement. Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. ...

The Supreme Court's consideration

Early in considering the case, Justice Souter defied all expectations and voted to uphold Roe v. Wade, resulting in a precarious five Justice majority consisting of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Byron White, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas that favored upholding all the abortion restrictions. However, Kennedy changed his vote at the last minute and joined with fellow Reagan-Bush justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter to form a plurality that would uphold Roe. William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 â€“ September 3, 2005) was an American lawyer, jurist, and a political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the Chief Justice of the United States. ... Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 â€“ April 15, 2002) won fame both as a football running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Antonin Gregory Scalia (born March 11, 1936[1]) is an American jurist and the second most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... This article is about the Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. ... Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist and has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. ... Sandra Day OConnor (born March 26, 1930) is an American jurist who served as the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. ... David Hackett Souter (born September 17, 1939) has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1990. ...

The Court's opinions

Casey is a divided judgment, in that none of the Justices' opinions was joined by a majority of justices. However, the plurality decision jointly written by Justices Souter, O'Connor, and Kennedy is recognized as the lead opinion with precedential weight because each of its parts were concurred in by at least two other Justices, albeit different ones for each part. Sandra Day OConnor (born March 26, 1930) is an American jurist who served as the first female Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1981 to 2006. ... This article is about the Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. ... This article is about the legal term. ...

The O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter plurality opinion

These three justices began their written opinion by noting the U.S. government's previous challenges to Roe v. Wade: Holding Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to get an abortion violated her due process rights. ...

The plurality opinion stated that it was upholding what it called the "essential holding" of Roe. The plurality asserted that the right to abortion is grounded in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the plurality reiterated what the Court had said in Eisenstadt v. Baird: "[i]f the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." Due process of law is a legal concept that ensures the government will respect all of a persons legal rights instead of just some or most of those legal rights, when the government deprives a person of life, liberty, or property. ... Eisenstadt v. ...

However, the plurality overturned the strict trimester formula used in Roe to weigh the woman's interest in obtaining an abortion against the State's interest in the life of the fetus. Continuing advancements in medical technology meant that at the time Casey was decided, a fetus might be considered viable at 22 or 23 weeks rather than at the 28 weeks that was more common at the time of Roe. The plurality recognized viability as the point at which the state interest in the life of the fetus outweighs the rights of the woman and abortion may be banned entirely. The human gestation period of approximately 40 weeks between the time of the last menstrual cycle and delivery is traditionally divided into three periods of three months, or trimesters. ...

The plurality also replaced the heightened scrutiny of abortion regulations under Roe, which was standard for fundamental rights in the Court's case law, with a lesser "undue burden" standard previously developed by O'Connor in her dissent in Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health.^[1] A legal restriction posing an undue burden was defined as one having "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus."

Applying this new standard to the Pennsylvania Act under challenge, the plurality struck down the spousal notification requirement, stating that it gave too much power to husbands over their wives and would worsen situations of spousal abuse. The plurality upheld the State's 24 hour waiting period, informed consent, and parental notification requirements, holding that none constituted an undue burden.

The plurality's opinion also included some controversial language about the doctrine of stare decisis. The plurality emphasized the need to stand by prior decisions even if they were unpopular, unless there had been a change in the fundamental reasoning underpinning the previous decision. It also acknowledged the need for predictability and constancy in judicial decision making. For example, Stare decisis (Latin: , Anglicisation: , to stand by things decided) is a Latin legal term, used in common law systems to express the notion that prior court decisions must be recognized as precedents, according to case law. ...

The plurality went on to give society's rejection of the "Separate but Equal" concept as a legitimate reason for the Brown v. Board of Education court’s rejection of the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine. Emphasizing the need to not be seen as overruling a prior decision merely because the individual members of the Court had changed, O’Connor states, Holding Segregation of students in public schools violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because separate facilities are inherently unequal. ... â€œPlessyâ€ redirects here. ...

Since the plurality overruled some portions of Roe v. Wade despite its emphasis on stare decisis, Chief Justice Rehnquist in dissent argued that this section was entirely obiter dicta. Holding Texas law making it a crime to assist a woman to get an abortion violated her due process rights. ... In law, the term dicta is used to refer to a judges statement of legal opinion that is not directly relevant to the case being heard. ...

The concurrence/dissents

William Rehnquist, Byron White, Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas - the six Justices who did not join the plurality opinion - wrote or joined opinions in which they partially concurred and partially dissented from the decision. William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 â€“ September 3, 2005) was an American lawyer, jurist, and a political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the Chief Justice of the United States. ... Byron Raymond White (June 8, 1917 â€“ April 15, 2002) won fame both as a football running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Justice Harry Blackmun Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 â€“ March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. ... John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is currently the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Antonin Gregory Scalia (born March 11, 1936[1]) is an American jurist and the second most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. ... Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist and has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. ...

Rehnquist and Scalia each joined the plurality in upholding the parental consent, informed consent, and waiting period laws. However, they dissented from the plurality's decision to uphold Roe v. Wade and strike down the spousal notification law, contending that Roe was incorrectly decided. Rehnquist and Scalia joined each other's concurrence/dissents, and White and Thomas, who did not write their own opinions, joined in both.

Blackmun and Stevens wrote opinions in which they approved of the plurality's preservation of Roe and rejection of the spousal notification law. They did not, however, agree with the plurality's decision to the other three laws at issue. Blackmun went further, sharply attacking and criticizing the anti-Roe bloc of the Court. Neither Blackmun's nor Stevens's opinions were joined by other justices.

Footnotes

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