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Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc.

Supreme Court of the United States · 1983 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawAbortionDue ProcessPrivacyParental ConsentInformed ConsentRoe v. Wadestare decisis

Facts

Akron enacted an ordinance regulating abortions, including requirements that all post-first-trimester abortions be performed in a hospital, that certain minors obtain parental consent or a court order, that physicians deliver specified informed-consent information, that women wait 24 hours after signing a consent form, and that fetal remains be disposed of in a 'humane and sanitary manner.' Violations were criminal misdemeanors. The challengers were abortion clinics and a physician who alleged that these provisions burdened access to abortion and were not justified by permissible state interests. The record showed that second-trimester hospital abortions cost substantially more than clinic abortions and that the dilation-and-evacuation procedure could be safely performed in appropriate nonhospital facilities during the early second trimester.

Issue

Whether Akron's ordinance provisions regulating abortions were consistent with the constitutional protection for a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy under the Due Process Clause. Specifically, the Court considered the validity of the ordinance's hospitalization requirement, parental-consent provision, informed-consent requirements, 24-hour waiting period, and fetal-remains disposal provision.

Rule

A woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy is a fundamental liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the State may regulate abortion to further compelling interests in maternal health and, at viability, potential life, such regulations are constitutional only if they are reasonably designed to further those interests; they may not depart from accepted medical practice, impose unnecessary obstacles to abortion access, require parental consent without an adequate alternative procedure for mature or best-interests determinations, mandate disclosures aimed at discouraging abortion or rigidly constrain physician judgment, impose arbitrary waiting periods unsupported by a legitimate state interest, or use criminally vague terms.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

The city council of Toledo enacts an ordinance requiring every abortion performed after 12 weeks of pregnancy to occur in an accredited full-service hospital. At trial, Priya Desai, a physician at Lakeview Women's Clinic, shows that dilation-and-evacuation procedures between weeks 13 and 15 are safely performed in licensed outpatient surgical centers, while hospital procedures cost more than twice as much and are rarely available locally.

If challenged before enforcement, how should a court rule on the hospitalization requirement under the majority's approach?

Explanation. After approximately the end of the first trimester, the State may regulate abortion only to the extent the regulation reasonably relates to preserving and protecting maternal health. The majority held a blanket hospitalization requirement invalid where current medical evidence showed early second-trimester D&E abortions could safely be performed in appropriate outpatient clinics and the rule imposed heavy cost and access burdens. A regulation is not saved merely because it may be reasonable later in the trimester; the State must reasonably limit it to the period actually supported by its health rationale. (Derived from Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc. (1983).)