Gonzales v. Carhart

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Gonzales v. Carhart
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 8, 2006 Decided April 18, 2007
Full case name	Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General, Petitioner v. LeRoy Carhart, et al.; Alberto R. Gonzales, Attorney General, Petitioner v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., et al.
Docket nos.	05-380 05-1382
Argument	Oral argument
Holding
Respondents have not demonstrated that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception. The decisions of the Courts of Appeals for the Eighth and Ninth Circuits are reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Kennedy, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Alito
Concurrence	Thomas, joined by Scalia
Dissent	Ginsburg, joined by Stevens, Souter, Breyer
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. V; Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act

Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124 (2007), is a United States Supreme Court case which upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The case reached the high court after U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appealed a ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in favor of LeRoy Carhart that struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Also before the Supreme Court was the consolidated appeal of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which had struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

The Supreme Court's decision upheld Congress' ban and held that it did not impose an undue burden on the due process right of women to obtain an abortion, "under precedents we here assume to be controlling," such as the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This case distinguished but did not reverse Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), in which the Court dealt with related issues.

History of case

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was signed into law by President Bush on November 5, 2003. It was challenged in three different U.S. district courts, the Northern District of California, the Southern District of New York, and the District of Nebraska where the law was judged unconstitutional. Federal District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of California also judged it unconstitutional on June 1, 2004 in Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft. New York District Judge Richard C. Casey also found the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional, as did U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Nebraska.

The federal government appealed the district court rulings, first bringing Carhart v. Gonzales before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The panel unanimously affirmed the ruling of the Nebraska court on July 8, 2005. Finding that the government offered no "new evidence which would serve to distinguish this record from the record reviewed by the Supreme Court in Stenberg," they held that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was unconstitutional because it lacked an exception for the health of the woman.

Attorney General Gonzales petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Eighth Circuit decision on September 25, 2005. Meanwhile, the Ninth Circuit also found the law unconstitutional, as did the Second Circuit (with a dissent), issuing their opinions on January 31, 2006. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Carhart case on February 21, 2006, and agreed to hear the companion Planned Parenthood case on June 19, 2006.

Oral arguments

Oral arguments in this case (as well as its companion case) occurred on November 8, 2006. U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, presented arguments for the United States, and Priscilla Smith presented arguments for Dr. Carhart et al. General Clement also presented arguments for the United States in the companion case of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood. Eve Gartner presented arguments for Planned Parenthood. The Supreme Court has made available audio of the oral arguments, in both Carhart and Planned Parenthood.

Decision

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the Court that the respondents had failed to show that Congress lacked authority to ban this abortion procedure. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas, and Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with the Court's judgment, joining Kennedy's opinion.

The Court left the door open for as-applied challenges, citing its recent precedent in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of New England. According to Washington Post reporter Benjamin Wittes, "The Court majority, following the path it sketched out last year in the New Hampshire case, decided to let the law stand as a facial matter and let the parties fight later about what, if any, applications need to be blocked."

The Court decided to "assume ... for the purposes of this opinion" the principles of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The Court said that the lower courts had repudiated a central premise of Casey — that the state has an interest in preserving fetal life — and the Court held that the ban was narrowly tailored to address this interest. Relying deferentially on Congress's findings that this intact dilation and extraction procedure is never needed to protect the health of a pregnant woman, Kennedy wrote that a health exception was therefore unnecessary. And, where medical testimony disputed Congress's findings, Congress is still entitled to regulate in an area where the medical community has not reached a "consensus."

The majority opinion held that "ethical and moral concerns", including an interest in fetal life, represented "substantial" state interests which (assuming they do not impose an "undue" burden) could be a basis for legislation at all times during pregnancy, not just after viability. Thus, the Court clarified that the pre-viability/post-viability distinction was not implicated in Carhart.

In addition, the Court distinguished the Stenberg case, which previously struck down Nebraska's partial-birth abortion law. The Court held that the state statute at issue in Stenberg was more ambiguous than the later federal statute at issue in Carhart.

The majority opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart did not discuss the constitutional rationale of the Court's prior abortion cases (i.e. "due process"). However, the majority opinion disagreed with the Eighth Circuit that the federal statute conflicted with "the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is textually identical to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Concurrence

Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Scalia, saving for another day the issue of whether Congress had sufficient power under the Commerce Clause to enact this ban. The Commerce Clause was also mentioned in the opinion of the Court, and was the only clause of the Constitution mentioned explicitly by the opinions in this case.

The concurrence also stated that Justices Thomas and Scalia joined the Court's opinion "because it accurately applies current jurisprudence." And, the concurrence reiterated their view that that current abortion jurisprudence "has no basis in the Constitution." Nadine Strossen, President of the ACLU, pointed out that "no less an anti-abortion proponent than Justice Scalia joined by Justice Thomas, in his separate opinion, chided the majority for not coming out and explicitly saying that they had overturned not Roe vs. Wade, but the prior partial-birth abortion ban case."

Dissent

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, joined by justices David Souter, John Paul Stevens, and Stephen Breyer, contending that the ruling was an "alarming" one that ignored Supreme Court abortion precedent. Justice Ginsburg's dissent was the only opinion in this case that mentioned the word "privacy". Justice Ginsburg, referring in particular to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, sought to ground the Court's abortion jurisprudence based on concepts of personal autonomy and equal citizenship rather than the Court's previous privacy approach: "Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures do not seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature." She also took issue with the majority opinion that no health exception was necessary, writing that "the absence of a health exception burdens all women for whom it is relevant—women who, in the judgment of their doctors, require an intact D&E because other procedures would place their health at risk."

Justice Kennedy's opinion in Carhart did not touch upon the question of whether the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were valid. Dissenting Justice Ginsburg characterized this aspect of the Court's opinion as follows: "Casey's principles, confirming the continuing vitality of ‘the essential holding of Roe,’ are merely ‘assume’ for the moment ... rather than ‘retained’ or ‘reaffirmed.’"

References

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate)
^ Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. ____ (2007). Findlaw.com. Retrieved 2007-04-19.
Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft, Order Granting Permanent Injunction, Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in Support Thereof, United States District Court for the Northern District of California (June 1, 2004)
National Abortion Federation v. Ashcroft, Opinion and Order, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (August 26, 2004)
Carhart v. Ashcroft, Memorandum and Order, United States District Court for the District of Nebraska (September 8, 2004)
^ Gonzales v. Carhart, United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (July 8, 2005)
Planned Parenthood Federation v. Gonzalez, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (January 31, 2006)
National Abortion Federation v. Gonzalez, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (January 31, 2006)
Supreme Court Docket, Gonzales v. Carhart (No. 05-380), providing copies of briefs, courtesy of Findlaw.com.
Supreme Court Docket, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (No. 05-1382), providing copies of briefs, courtesy of Findlaw.com.
Transcript of Oral Arguments, Gonzales v. Carhart (November 8, 2006), via U.S. Supreme Court web site.
Transcript of Oral Arguments, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (November 8, 2006), via U.S. Supreme Court web site.
Audio and Transcript of Oral Arguments, Gonzales v. Carhart (November 8, 2006) via Oyez web site
Audio and Transcript of Oral Arguments, Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood (November 8, 2006) via Oyez web site
Wittes, Benjamin (2007-04-30). "The Supreme Court's Shift on Abortion is Not What You Think". The New Republic. Retrieved 2007-12-03.
Interview with Nadine Strossen, David Shankbone, Wikinews, October 30, 2007.
Gonzales v. Carhart, Ginsburg, J., dissenting, U.S. Supreme Court (April 18, 2007)

External links

Alexi Wright and Ingrid T. Katz "Roe versus Reality — Abortion and Women's Health", New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 355, pp 1–9 (July 6, 2006) (perspective from opponents of the PBA statute).
American Center for Law and Justice (group defending PBA statute provides info including links to media coverage).
"Fighting to Protect Women's Health", Center for Reproductive Rights (group opposing PBA statute provides timeline of case).
PBA Ruling Splits Movement, CovenantNews.com analysis lists pro-life groups condemning this decision due to its affirmation of even late-term abortion.
Analysis of Gonzales v. Carhart, Colorado Right to Life analysis of Partial Birth Abortion Ban ruling (Gonzales v. Carhart)

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