Complete Home & Office Legal Guide/Complete Home and Office Legal Guide (Chestnut) (1993).ISO/stat/ussct/abort1.asc

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/* In this case, the court was squarely asked to overrule Roe vs.
Wade, but did not. This case did however, change the standards of
review for such cases. */

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be
released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the
time the opinion is issued.  The syllabus constitutes no part of
the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of
Decisions for the convenience of the reader.  See United States
v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U.S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

 Syllabus

PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA et al. v. CASEY,
GOVERNOR OF
PENNSYLVANIA, et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the third
circuit

No. 91-744. Argued April 22, 1992 Decided June 29, 1992

At issue are five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control
Act of 1982: 3205, which requires that a woman seeking an
abortion give her informed consent prior to the procedure, and
specifies that she be provided with certain information at least
24 hours before the abortion is performed; 3206, which mandates
the informed consent of one parent for a minor to obtain an
abortion, but provides a judicial bypass procedure; 3209, which
commands that, unless certain exceptions apply, a married wom- an
seeking an abortion must sign a statement indicating that she has
notified her husband; 3203, which defines a "medical emergency"
that will excuse compliance with the foregoing requirements; and
3207(b), 3214(a), and 3214(f), which impose certain reporting
requirements on facilities providing abortion services.  Before
any of the provisions took effect, the petitioners, five abortion
clinics and a physician representing himself and a class of
doctors who provide abortion services, brought this suit seeking
a declaratory judgment that each of the provisions was
unconstitutional on its face, as well as injunctive relief.  The
District Court held all the provisions unconstitutional and
permanently enjoined their enforcement.  The Court of Appeals
affirmed in part and reversed in part, striking down the husband
notification provision but upholding the others.

Held: The judgment in No. 91-902 is affirmed; the judgment in No.
91-744 is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is
remanded.

947 F.2d 682:  No. 91-902, affirmed; No. 91-744, affirmed in
part, reversed in part, and remanded.

Justice O'Connor, Justice Kennedy, and Justice Souter delivered
the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III,

concluding that:

1. Consideration of the fundamental constitutional question
resolved by Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S.  113, principles of
institutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis require
that Roe's essential holding be retained and reaffirmed as to
each of its three parts:  (1) a recognition of a woman's right to
choose to have an abortion before fetal viability and to obtain
it without undue interference from the State, whose previability
interests are not strong enough to support an abortion
prohibition or the imposition of substantial obstacles to the
woman's effective right to elect the procedure; (2) a
confirmation of the State's power to restrict abortions after
viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies
endangering a woman's life or health; and (3) the principle that
the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the
pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of
the fetus that may become a child.  Pp.1-27.

(a) A reexamination of the principles that define the woman's
rights and the State's authority regarding abortions is required
by the doubt this Court's subsequent decisions have cast upon the
meaning and reach of Roe's central holding, by the fact that The
Chief Justice would overrule Roe, and by the necessity that state
and federal courts and legislatures have adequate guidance on the
subject.  Pp.1-3.  (b) Roe determined that a woman's decision to
terminate her pregnancy is a "liberty" protected against state
interference by the substantive component of the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Neither the Bill of Rights
nor the specific practices of States at the time of the
Fourteenth Amendment's adoption marks the outer limits of the
substantive sphere of such "liberty." Rather, the adjudica- tion
of substantive due process claims may require this Court to
exercise its reasoned judgment in determining the boundaries
between the individual's liberty and the demands of organized
society.  The Court's decisions have afforded constitutional
protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, see, e.
g., Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, procreation, Skinner v.
Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, family relationships, Prince v.
Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, child rearing and education, Pierce
v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, and contraception, see, e.
g., Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, and have recognized
the right of the individual to be free from unwarranted
governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a
per- son as the decision whether to bear or beget a child,
Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 453.  Roe's central holding
properly invoked the reasoning and tradition of these precedents.
Pp.- 4-11.

(c) Application of the doctrine of stare decisis confirms that
Roe's essential holding should be reaffirmed.  In reexamining
that holding, the Court's judgment is informed by a series of
prudential and pragmatic considerations designed to test the
consistency of overruling the holding with the ideal of the rule
of law, and to gauge the respective costs of reaffirming and
overruling.  Pp.11-13.

(d) Although Roe has engendered opposition, it has in no sense
proven unworkable, representing as it does a simple limitation
beyond which a state law is unenforceable.  P.13.  (e) The Roe
rule's limitation on state power could not be repudiated without
serious inequity to people who, for two decades of economic and
social developments, have organized intimate relationships and
made choices that define their views of themselves and their
places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in
the event that contraception should fail.  The 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.  The Constitution serves human values, and
while the effect of reliance on Roe cannot be exactly measured,
neither can the certain costs of overruling Roe for people who
have ordered their thinking and living around that case be
dismissed.  Pp.13-14.  (f)No evolution of legal principle has
left Roe's central rule a doctrinal anachronism discounted by
society.  If Roe is placed among the cases exemplified by
Griswold, supra, it is clearly in no jeopardy, since subsequent
constitutional developments have neither disturbed, nor do they
threaten to diminish, the liberty recognized in such cases.
Similarly, if Roe is seen as stating a rule of personal autonomy
and bodily integrity, akin to cases recognizing limits on
governmental power to mandate medical treatment or to bar its
rejection, this Court's post- Roe decisions accord with Roe's
view that a State's interest in the protection of life falls
short of justifying any plenary override of individual liberty
claims.  See, e. g., Cruzan v.  Director, Missouri Dept. of
Health, 497 U.S. ___, ___.  Finally, if Roe is classified as sui
generis, there clearly has been no erosion of its central
determination.  It was expressly reaffirmed in Akron v. Akron
Center for Reproductive Health, 462 U.S. 416 (Akron I), and
Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747; and, in Webster v. Reproductive
Health Services, 492 U.S. 490, a majority either voted to
reaffirm or declined to address the constitutional validit