Editing Planned Parenthood v. Casey (section)

==Background==
In ''Casey'', the plaintiffs challenged five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982 authored by state Rep. [[Stephen Freind|Stephen F. Freind]],<ref name="TimesSpecter">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/21/us/the-1992-campaign-pennsylvania-trouble-shadows-specter-in-senate-race.html?pagewanted=all |title=The 1992 Campaign: Pennsylvania; Trouble Shadows Specter in Senate Race |first=Michael |last=deCourcy Hind |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=February 21, 1992 |access-date=August 15, 2009}}</ref> arguing that the provisions were unconstitutional under ''[[Roe v. Wade]]''. The Court in ''Roe'' was the first to establish abortion as a fundamental right protected by the [[Due Process Clause]] of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]]. The majority in ''Roe'' further held that women have a privacy interest protecting their right to abortion embedded in the [[Due Process Clause]] of the Fourteenth Amendment. The five provisions at issue in ''Casey'' are summarized below.
* § 3205's informed consent — a woman seeking abortion had to give her informed consent prior to the procedure. The doctor had to provide her with specific information at least 24 hours before the procedure was to take place, including information about how the abortion could be detrimental to her health and about the availability of information about the fetus.
* § 3209's spousal notice — a married woman seeking abortion had to sign a statement declaring that she had notified her husband prior to undergoing the procedure, unless certain exceptions applied.
* § 3206's parental consent — minors had to get the informed consent of at least one parent or guardian prior to the abortion procedure. Alternatively, minors could seek judicial bypass in lieu of consent.
* § 3203's medical emergency definition — defining a medical emergency as "[t]hat condition, which, on the basis of the physician's good faith clinical judgment, so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function."
* §§ 3207(b), 3214(a), and 3214(f)'s reporting requirements — certain reporting and record keeping mandates were imposed on facilities providing abortion services.

The case was a seminal one in the history of abortion decisions in the United States. It was the first case to provide an opportunity to overturn ''Roe'' since two liberal [[U.S. Associate Justice]]s, [[William J. Brennan Jr.]] and [[Thurgood Marshall]], had been replaced with the [[George H. W. Bush]]-appointed Justices [[David Souter]] and [[Clarence Thomas]]. Both were viewed, in comparison to their predecessors, as ostensible conservatives. This left the Court with eight Republican-appointed justices, five of whom had been appointed by Presidents [[Ronald Reagan]] or Bush, both of whom were well known for their opposition to ''Roe''. Finally, the only remaining Democratic appointee was Justice [[Byron White]], who had been one of the two dissenters from the original ''Roe'' decision and had stood by his dissent in his subsequent dissenting opinion in [[Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists]] saying, "I continue to believe that this venture [the substantive due process right to abortion] has been fundamentally misguided since its inception". At this point, only two of the Justices were obvious supporters of ''Roe v. Wade'': [[Harry Blackmun]], the author of ''Roe'', and [[John Paul Stevens]], who had joined opinions specifically reaffirming ''Roe'' in ''[[City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health]]'' and ''[[Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists]]''.

The case was argued by [[American Civil Liberties Union]] attorney [[Kathryn Kolbert]] for [[Planned Parenthood]], with Linda J. Wharton serving as Co-Lead Counsel. [[Pennsylvania Attorney General]], [[Ernie Preate]], argued the case for the state, focusing mainly on how the law could be upheld without overturning Roe, though suggesting Roe be overturned as an alternative means of upholding the law. Upon reaching the Supreme Court, the United States joined the case as an ''[[amicus curiae]]'', and [[U.S. Solicitor General]], [[Ken Starr]] of the Bush Administration, defended the Act in part by urging the Court to overturn ''Roe'' as having been wrongly decided.

===District Court's ruling===
The plaintiffs were five abortion clinics, a class of physicians who provided abortion services, and one physician representing himself independently. They filed suit in the [[U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania]] to [[Injunction|enjoin]] the state from enforcing the five provisions and have them [[Declaratory judgment|declared]] facially unconstitutional. The District Court, after a three-day bench trial, held that all the provisions were unconstitutional and entered a permanent injunction against Pennsylvania's enforcement of them.<ref>{{cite court |litigants=Planned Parenthood v. Casey |vol=744 |reporter=F. Supp. |opinion=1323 |court=E.D. Pa. |date=1990 |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/744/1323/1797783/ |access-date=2018-05-18 }}</ref>

===Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision===
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, upholding all of the regulations except for the husband notification requirement.<ref>{{cite court |litigants=Planned Parenthood v. Casey |vol=947 |reporter=F.2d |opinion=682 |court=3d Cir. |date=1991 |url=https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/947/682/153995/ |access-date=May 18, 2018 }}</ref> The Third Circuit concluded that the husband notification was unduly burdensome because it potentially exposed married women to [[Domestic violence|spousal abuse]], violence, and economic duress at the hands of their husbands.{{sfn|Constitutional Law and Politics: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Eighth Edition|2011}} Then-Circuit Judge [[Samuel Alito]] sat on that three-judge appellate panel and dissented from the court's invalidation of that requirement. Thirty-one years later, as a Supreme Court Justice, Alito wrote the opinion in ''[[Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization]]'', which overturned ''Roe'' and ''Casey''.<ref name="Politico.com"/><ref>{{cite news|last=Savage|first=Charlie|date=June 25, 2022|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/us/politics/samuel-alito-abortion.html|title=Decades Ago, Alito Laid Out Methodical Strategy to Eventually Overrule Roe|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=June 30, 2022}}</ref>

===Supreme Court's consideration===
At the conference of the Justices two days after oral argument, Souter defied expectations, joining Justices Stevens, Blackmun, and [[Sandra Day O'Connor]], who had all dissented three years earlier in ''[[Webster v. Reproductive Health Services]]'' with regard to that plurality's suggested reconsideration and narrowing of ''Roe''. This resulted in a precarious five-Justice majority consisting of Chief Justice [[William Rehnquist]], Byron White, [[Antonin Scalia]], [[Anthony Kennedy]], and Clarence Thomas that favored upholding all five contested abortion restrictions and overturning ''Roe''; however, Kennedy changed his mind shortly thereafter, and joined with fellow Reagan-Bush justices O'Connor and Souter to write a plurality opinion that would reaffirm ''Roe''.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110701333_pf.html |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |title=All Eyes on Kennedy in Court Debate On Abortion |first=Charles |last=Lane |date=November 7, 2006|access-date=May 22, 2010}}</ref>