Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc.

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Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc.
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided May 28, 2019
Full case name Kristina Box, Commissioner, Indiana Department of Health, et al. v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc., et al.
Docket no. 18-483
Citations587 U.S. ___ ( more )
139 S. Ct. 1780; 204 L. Ed. 2d 78
Case history
Prior
  • Preliminary injunction granted, Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., Inc. v. Ind. Dep't of Health, 194 F. Supp. 3d 818 (S.D. Ind. 2016)
  • Summary judgment and permanent injunction granted, 265 F. Supp. 3d 859 (S.D. Ind. 2017)
  • Affirmed, 888 F.3d 300 (7th Cir. 2018)
  • Rehearing en banc denied, 917 F.3d 532 (7th Cir. 2018).
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Clarence Thomas  · Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer  · Samuel Alito
Sonia Sotomayor  · Elena Kagan
Neil Gorsuch  · Brett Kavanaugh
Case opinions
Per curiam
ConcurrenceThomas
Concur/dissentGinsburg
Concur/dissentSotomayor (did not file or join an opinion)

Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc., No. 18-483, 587 U.S. ___, 139 S.Ct. 1780 (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the constitutionality of a 2016 anti-abortion law passed in the state of Indiana. Indiana's law sought to ban abortions performed solely on the basis of the fetus' gender, race, ethnicity, or disabilities. Lower courts had blocked enforcement of the law for violating a woman's right to abortion under privacy concerns within the Fourteenth Amendment, as previously found in the landmark cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey . The lower courts also blocked enforcement of another portion of the law that required the disposal of aborted fetuses through burial or cremation. The per curiam decision by the Supreme Court overturned the injunction on the fetal disposal portion of the law, but otherwise did not challenge or confirm the lower courts' ruling on the non-discrimination clauses, leaving these in place. [1]

Contents

The case gained national interest as the first major abortion-related case to be heard by the Supreme Court since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy (who tended to favor abortion rights) with his replacement Justice Brett Kavanaugh (who has appeared to rule against such rights in his previous limited judicial history). Court observers expressed concern that in opposing comments raised between Justices Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could result in later abortion-related challenges reaching the Supreme Court and potentially overturn parts of Roe v. Wade.

Background

Since around 2010, several states with Republican leadership and conservative populations started to pass laws restricting abortion rights to some degree. In more recent years, with the onset of the presidency of Donald Trump and his nominations of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, these laws have appeared designed to create a necessary legal vehicle to be heard by the Supreme Court as to challenge the long-standing provision of the 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade . That case decided that women have constitutional rights to an abortion, but this is not an absolute right, and states can enact abortion-restricting laws to protect women and their unborn children during the latter trimesters of pregnancy. [2] One type of law passed placed limits on the locations of abortion clinics, requiring them to be near hospitals and requiring doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at that hospital, purportedly to ensure that if something goes wrong during the abortion process, the female patient can receive immediate care. This type of restriction was determined to be unconstitutional in the Supreme Court case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt that struck down a Texas law with these limits.

In the present case, the Republican-controlled legislation of Indiana passed House Bill 1337, a "Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban", and which was signed into law by Mike Pence in March 2016. Among other requirements, the bill added three key clauses related to those seeking abortions and their practice. The non-discrimination clause banned abortions which were being performed for reasons solely related to gender, race, ethnicity, or detectable disabilities, such as Down syndrome, and put liabilities on doctors that proceeded to perform such abortions. The informed consent clause required that women undergoing abortions be notified at least 18 hours before their operation regarding the non-discrimination clause and the legal ramifications. Finally, the fetal disposition clause required that abortion clinics bury or incinerate fetal material if the female patient did not take control of it, treating the fetal remains the same as a deceased person. On passage, the law was met with sharp criticism from pro-abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood since the law strictly limited abortion rights. [3]

Within weeks of passage, Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Inc. (PPINK) sought a stay of the law from going into effect that July while they challenged it in court. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana agreed that PPINK's case has merit, and issued an injunction on June 30, 2016, to block enforcement of the new law. [4] Both PPINK and the state of Indiana sought to get a summary judgement on the case in district court; the court granted summary judgement to PPINK stating that all three provisions of the law were unconstitutional, and permanently barred the state from enforcing the law. [5]

The state appealed to the Seventh Circuit, which upheld the lower court's ruling in an April 2018 decision. [6] The Seventh Circuit agreed with the lower court, asserting that the non-discrimination clause violated the Fourteenth Amendment for a women's right to privacy as determined in both Roe v. Wade and in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and by extension, the informed consent clause was also unconstitutional. The Seventh Circuit ruled the fetal disposition clause as failing due process as Roe and additional case law did not recognize the fetus as a person and thus requiring the same process for disposal as for a person violated due process. [7]

Supreme Court

Indiana petitioned to the Supreme Court by September 2018; this was after Justice Neil Gorsuch had assumed his role on the Supreme Court, while Brett Kavanaugh's nomination was being heard by the United States Senate. The state presented two questions to the Court, the first regarding the fetal disposal clause of the law and the second on the non-discrimination clause. The Court issued a per curiam decision on May 28, 2019, in which it granted certiorari on the first question and overturned the stay on the fetal disposition clause, arguing that how the fetus is disposed has no impact on a woman's rights to an abortion. [1] The Court denied certiorari with regard to the second question on non-discrimination, leaving the lower court's injunction on the non-discrimination and informed consent clauses in place, opting not to consider the merits until at least one other Circuit Court had ruled on such an issue, following its ordinary practice. [8]

Both Justices Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote additional opinions on the per curiam decision. Justice Thomas' opinion compared abortion practices and birth control to eugenics, cautioning that abortion and birth control could become a "tool of eugenic manipulation", and emphasized the need for the Supreme Court to address the scope of what their Roe v. Wade decision has allowed. [9] Ginsburg, a strong supporter of abortion rights, dissented from the reversal of the fetal disposal clause injunction, writing, "This case implicates the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the state". [10] Both Thomas' and Ginsburg's opinions included biting footnotes to the other's opinion. [11] Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated separately that she would have denied certiorari on both questions posed by the petition as part of the per curiam decision.

Observers of the court believed this decision, while unsigned, firmly asserted the current 5–4 split between conservative and liberal justices and signalled that abortion rights would become a critical issue for the current court, particularly ahead of the 2020 United States elections. [11] [12]

Related Research Articles

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many abortion laws, and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court upheld the right to have an abortion as established by the "essential holding" of Roe v. Wade (1973) and issued as its "key judgment" the restoration of the undue burden standard when evaluating state-imposed restrictions on that right. Both the essential holding of Roe and the key judgment of Casey were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022, with its landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States abortion-rights movement</span> Support for womens right to elective abortion

The United States abortion-rights movement is a sociopolitical movement in the United States supporting the view that a woman should have the legal right to an elective abortion, meaning the right to terminate her pregnancy, and is part of a broader global abortion-rights movement. The movement consists of a variety of organizations, with no single centralized decision-making body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act</span> 2003 U.S. federal law banning partial-birth abortion

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 is a United States law prohibiting a form of late termination of pregnancy called "partial-birth abortion", referred to in medical literature as intact dilation and extraction. Under this law, any physician "who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both". The law was enacted in 2003, and in 2007 its constitutionality was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unborn Victims of Violence Act</span> Law that recognizes an embryo or fetus as a legal victim

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb."

Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court dealing with a Nebraska law which made performing "partial-birth abortion" illegal, without regard for the health of the mother. Nebraska physicians who performed the procedure contrary to the law were subject to having their medical licenses revoked. The Court struck down the law, finding the Nebraska statute criminalizing "partial birth abortion[s]" violated the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, as interpreted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Roe v. Wade.

Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124 (2007), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that 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 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in favor of LeRoy Carhart that struck down the Act. Also before the Supreme Court was the consolidated appeal of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, whose ruling had the same effect as that of the Eighth Circuit.

This is a timeline of reproductive rights legislation, a chronological list of laws and legal decisions affecting human reproductive rights. Reproductive rights are a sub-set of human rights pertaining to issues of reproduction and reproductive health. These rights may include some or all of the following: the right to legal or safe abortion, the right to birth control, the right to access quality reproductive healthcare, and the right to education and access in order to make reproductive choices free from coercion, discrimination, and violence. Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive education about contraception and sexually transmitted infections, and freedom from coerced sterilization, abortion, and contraception, and protection from practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abortion law in the United States by state</span> Termination of pregnancy in states of the United States

The legality of abortion in the United States and the various restrictions imposed on the procedure vary significantly depending on the laws of each state or other jurisdiction. Some states prohibit abortion at all stages of pregnancy with few exceptions, others permit it up to a certain point in a woman's pregnancy, while others allow abortion throughout a woman's pregnancy. In states where abortion is legal, several classes of restrictions on the procedure may exist, such as parental consent or notification laws, requirements that patients be shown an ultrasound before obtaining an abortion, mandatory waiting periods, and counseling requirements.

Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U.S. 582 (2016), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court announced on June 27, 2016. The Court ruled 5–3 that Texas cannot place restrictions on the delivery of abortion services that create an undue burden for women seeking an abortion. On June 28, 2016, the Supreme Court refused to hear challenges from Wisconsin and Mississippi where federal appeals courts had struck down similar laws. Other states with similar laws may also be impacted.

Abortion in Alabama is illegal. Historically, Alabama's abortion laws have evolved from strict regulations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to a period of liberalization following the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide. However, Alabama has consistently enacted legislation aimed at restricting access to abortion.

As of 2023, Abortion is currently legal in Indiana up to 10 weeks. It is also legal in cases involving fatal fetal abnormalities, to preserve the life and physical health of the mother, and in cases of rape or incest. Previously abortion in Indiana was legal up to 20 weeks; a near-total ban that was scheduled to take effect on August 1 was placed on hold due to further legal challenges, but is set to take place, after the Indiana Supreme Court denied an appeal by the ACLU, and once it certifies a previous ruling, that an abortion ban doesn't violate the state constitution. In the wake of the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court ruling, abortion in Indiana remained legal despite Indiana lawmakers voting in favor of a near-total abortion ban on August 5, 2022. Governor Eric Holcomb signed this bill into law the same day. The new law became effective on September 15, 2022. But on September 22, 2022, Special Judge Kelsey B. Hanlon of the Monroe County Circuit Court granted a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the ban. Her ruling allows the state's previous abortion law, which allows abortions up to 20 weeks after fertilization with exceptions for rape and incest, to remain in effect.

Abortion in Kentucky is illegal. There were laws in Kentucky about abortion by 1900, including ones with therapeutic exceptions. In 1998, the state passed legislation that required clinics to have an abortion clinic license if they wanted to operate. By the early 2010s, members of the Kentucky Legislature attempted to ban abortion in almost all cases and had also introduced the early abortion bans. Prior to 2019, Kentucky law prohibited abortions after week 22. This changed when the state legislature passed a law that moved the prohibition to week 6 in the early part of the year. In that year, 57% of people in Kentucky said abortion should be "illegal in all or most cases." A bill passed and made effective in April 2022 lowered the threshold to 15 weeks, the second most restrictive limit in effect in the United States behind Texas, and introduced regulations that made abortion illegal until it was blocked in federal court.

Abortion in North Dakota is illegal. The state's sole abortion clinic relocated to Minnesota.

Abortion in Pennsylvania is legal up to the 24th week of pregnancy. 51% of Pennsylvania adults said in a 2014 poll by the Pew Research Center that abortion should be legal and 44% said it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Abortion in Tennessee is illegal from fertilization, except to "prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman".

Abortion in California is legal up to the point of fetal viability. An abortion ban was in place by 1900, and by 1950, it was a criminal offense for a woman to have an abortion. In 1962, the American Law Institute published their model penal code as it applied to abortions, with three circumstances where they believed a physician could justifiably perform an abortion, and California adopted a version of this code. In 2002, California passed a law guaranteeing women the right to have an abortion "prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman." In 2022, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1, which amended the Constitution of California to explicitly protect the right to abortion and contraception by a margin of 33.76%.

Abortion in Iowa is legal up to 20 weeks of gestation. A 6-week abortion ban has been indefinitely blocked in court.

Mazurek v. Armstrong, 520 U.S. 968 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld a Montana law permitting only licensed physicians to perform abortions. The Court summarily reversed a ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that had held that the law was likely intended to inhibit abortion access. In a per curiam opinion, a majority of the Court found that there was no evidence that the Montana legislature acted with an invalid intent. The Court also reiterated its earlier holding in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that the states have broad flexibility to regulate abortion so long as their regulations do not create an undue burden on a woman's right to choose. Three dissenting justices, in an opinion by Justice John Paul Stevens, wrote that they would have declined to hear the case because proceedings were still pending in the lower courts. The law itself was later struck down by the Montana Supreme Court on state-constitutional grounds.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, No. 19-1392, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court held that the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion. The court's decision overruled both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), returning to individual states the power to regulate any aspect of abortion not protected by federal law.

References

  1. 1 2 Box v. Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., Inc., No. 18-483 , 587 U.S. ___, 139 S. Ct. 1780 (2019).
  2. ↑ Williams, Timothy; Blinder, Alan (May 8, 2019). "As States Race to Limit Abortions, Alabama Goes Further, Seeking to Outlaw Most of Them". The New York Times . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  3. ↑ Smith, Mitch (March 24, 2016). "Indiana Governor Signs Abortion Bill With Added Restrictions". The New York Times . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  4. ↑ Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., Inc. v. Ind. Dep't of Health, 194F. Supp. 3d818 ( S.D. Ind. 2016).
  5. ↑ Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., Inc. v. Ind. Dep't of Health, 265F. Supp. 3d859 ( S.D. Ind. 2017).
  6. ↑ Planned Parenthood of Ind. & Ky., Inc. v. Ind. Dep't of Health, 888F.3d300 ( 7th Cir. 2018).
  7. ↑ Hays, Holly (April 19, 2018). "Indiana abortion law signed by former Gov. Mike Pence is ruled unconstitutional". The Indianapolis Star . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  8. ↑ Biskupic, Joan (May 28, 2019). "Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks out with eye towards future of Roe v. Wade". CNN . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  9. ↑ de Vogue, Ariane (May 28, 2019). "Why Clarence Thomas wrote over a dozen pages on eugenics". CNN . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  10. ↑ de Vogue, Ariane (May 28, 2019). "Thomas, Ginsburg draw battle lines for future abortion cases". CNN . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  11. 1 2 Sherman, Mark (May 28, 2019). "Supreme Court signals more openness to state abortion rules". Associated Press . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  12. ↑ Stohr, Greg (May 20, 2019). "Supreme Court's Abortion Agenda May Crystallize in Coming Weeks". Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved May 29, 2019.
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