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Planned Parenthood Association of Kansas City, Missouri, Inc. v. Ashcroft

Supreme Court of the United States · 1983 · Constitutional Law

Constitutional LawAbortionParental consentState regulation of abortionabortionviabilitysecond-trimester hospitalizationsecond physician

Facts

Missouri required abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy to be performed in a hospital, required a pathology report for each abortion, required a second physician to attend abortions performed after viability, and required minors to obtain parental consent or judicial authorization. The plaintiffs were an abortion provider, physicians who perform abortions, and an abortion clinic. The district court invalidated all challenged provisions except the pathology requirement, and the court of appeals upheld the parental-or-judicial-consent requirement, invalidated the pathology requirement, affirmed invalidation of the second-physician requirement, and ultimately affirmed invalidation of the hospitalization requirement. The Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of those provisions under abortion precedents discussed in City of Akron.

Issue

Whether Missouri's requirements for second-trimester hospitalization, pathology reports for all abortions, attendance of a second physician at postviability abortions, and parental or judicial consent for minors violated the Constitution. More specifically, the Court considered whether each provision impermissibly burdened the abortion right or instead permissibly furthered the State's health or fetal-life interests.

Rule

A second-trimester hospitalization requirement that forces all such abortions into hospitals unreasonably infringes a woman's constitutional right to obtain an abortion. By contrast, a regulation is permissible when it is reasonably related to generally accepted medical standards and furthers important health-related state concerns without significantly burdening the abortion decision. After viability, the State's compelling interest in potential life permits safeguards that reasonably further protection of viable fetuses. A parental-consent scheme for minors is constitutional if the State provides an alternative judicial procedure through which the minor can show either that she is mature enough to decide for herself or that the abortion would be in her best interests.

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

Ohio enacts a statute requiring every abortion performed after 13 weeks of pregnancy to take place in a licensed general hospital. A Cleveland clinic that safely performs outpatient procedures challenges the law, showing that patients must travel farther and pay substantially more once the hospital requirement applies.

How should a court rule on the constitutionality of the hospital-only requirement?

Explanation. The majority treated a blanket requirement that all abortions after the early weeks be performed in hospitals as materially similar to the invalid requirement discussed in Akron. A rule compelling all second-trimester abortions to occur in general hospitals unreasonably infringes the woman's constitutional right to obtain an abortion. The defect is the across-the-board hospitalization mandate itself, not merely whether hospitals are unsafe. (Derived from Planned Parenthood Association of Kansas City, Missouri, Inc. v. Ashcroft (1983).)