In a rare unanimous decision in an abortion-related case, the Supreme Court Jan. 18 reversed a lower court's ruling that struck down New Hampshire's parental notification law.
The opinion written by retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor sent back to the appeals court the issue of the law's lack of an exception in cases where the teen's health is at imminent risk from continuing the pregnancy.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed the ruling, saying she hoped "it will end the disposition of lower courts to enjoin the enforcement of reasonable common-sense abortion regulations for years while challenges are appealed."
Deirdre McQuade, director of planning and information for the bishops' pro-life secretariat, said the court missed a chance to address the "substantive legal questions" raised in the case, leaving more question than answers, especially about health exceptions in abortion-related laws.
Lower courts had declared the New Hampshire law invalid because it lacked a health exception. But the Supreme Court said that problem could be fixed without throwing out the whole statute.
"That law reflects the common sense principle that caring parents know best what their children need," McQuade said in a Jan.19 statement. "But neither the lower courts nor state legislatures have been given the guidance necessary to address these issues. And that is unfortunate."
The ruling made clear from its opening words that the court was not addressing abortion precedents, only the question of what remedies are available in the case of medical emergencies.
"We agree with New Hampshire that the lower courts need not have invalidated the law wholesale," wrote O'Connor. "Only a few applications of New Hampshire's parental notification statute would present a constitutional problem. So long as they are faithful to legislative intent, then, in this case the lower courts can issue a declaratory judgment and an injunction prohibiting the statute's unconstitutional application."
The 2003 law has been blocked from taking effect by legal challenges. It would require pregnant teens who want to have an abortion to notify a parent or guardian 48 hours ahead of time. The law provides for a judge to bypass notifying a parent under certain circumstances and for the requirement to be waived if the pregnancy puts the young woman at risk of dying.
It does not provide for exceptions when the girl's health is at risk. The state argued that such a provision is unnecessary because the judicial bypass and other state laws would cover those situations.
During oral arguments in the case at the Supreme Court in November, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that the definition of a "health risk" has been interpreted so broadly that "lots of people think of 'health' as a way of having abortion on demand," under any circumstances.
In sending the case back to the lower court, the justices said the District Court and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "chose the most blunt remedy" by blocking enforcement of the statute and thereby invalidating it entirely.
O'Connor said that conclusion "is understandable, for we, too, have previously invalidated an abortion statute in its entirety because of the same constitutional flaw." In Stenberg v. Carhart in 2000, the court struck down Nebraska's law banning partial-birth abortion because it lacked a health exception.
But, she noted, "the parties in Stenberg did not ask for, and we did not contemplate, relief more finely drawn."
In the New Hampshire case, the state recognized "the possibility of a modest remedy," O'Connor wrote, with the attorney general conceding at oral argument that "carefully crafted injunctive relief may resolve this case."
"Only a few applications of New Hampshire's parental notification statute would present a constitutional problem," the opinion said. "So long as they are faithful to the legislative intent, then, in this case, the lower courts can issue a declaratory judgment and an injunction prohibiting the state's unconstitutional application."
The justices said the lower court could address the concern about exceptions with either an injunction prohibiting some applications of the law or by finding that the Legislature's intentions require that the whole statute be thrown out if it cannot be enacted as is.
The opinion noted that 44 states have laws requiring parental notification or parental consent for minors to have abortions. New Hampshire is one of four states that do not provide exceptions for health risks.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Bishop John B. McCormack, who heads the statewide Diocese of Manchester, N.H., had filed an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief urging the statute be upheld. ---CNS |