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BookStudyVol.II: VIII. Privacy and Reproductive Rights
The Right to Abortion
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1964/1964_496
Roe v. Wade (1973)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1971/1971_70_18
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1988/1988_88_605
Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1989/1989_88_1125
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey(1992)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1991/1991_91_744
Vacco v. Quill (1997)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1996/1996_95_1858
Washington v. Glucksberg (1997)
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1990-1999/1996/1996_96_110
The Right to Abortion
Facts of the case
In 1879, Connecticut passed a law that banned the use of any drug, medical device, or other instrument in furthering contraception. A gynecologist at the Yale School of Medicine, C. Lee Buxton, opened a birth control clinic in New Haven in conjunction with Estelle Griswold, who was the head of Planned Parenthood in Connecticut. They were arrested and convicted of violating the law, and their convictions were affirmed by higher state courts. Their plan was to use the clinic to challenge the constitutionality of the statute under the Fourteenth Amendment before the Supreme Court.
Question
Does the Constitution protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple's ability to be counseled in the use of contraceptives?
Conclusion
A right to privacy can be inferred from several amendments in the Bill of Rights, and this right prevents states from making the use of contraception by married couples illegal.
In a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Douglas, the Court ruled that the Constitution did in fact protect the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on contraception. While the Court explained that the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees within the Bill of Rights create penumbras, or zones, that establish a right to privacy. Together, the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments create the right to privacy in marital relations. The Connecticut statute conflicted with the exercise of this right and was therefore held null and void.
Justice Goldberg, joined by Justices Warren and Brennan, concurred. Rather than finding that the right to privacy was contained in imaginary penumbras, Goldberg located it in the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Justice Harlan concurred, arguing that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to privacy.
Justice White concurred, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment was the proper basis for the decision.
Justice Black, joined by Justice Stewart, dissented. Unpersuaded by the loose reasoning of the majority, Black felt that there was no way to infer that the Constitution contained a right to privacy. He also dismissed the views of the concurrences that it could be found in the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Justice Stewart, joined by Justice Black, filed a separate dissenting opinion. Stewart argued that despite his personal view that the law was "uncommonly silly," he felt that the Court had no choice but to find it constitutional.
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Facts of the case
In 1970, Jane Roe (a fictional name used in court documents to protect the plaintiff’s identity) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where she resided, challenging a Texas law making abortion illegal except by a doctor’s orders to save a woman’s life. In her lawsuit, Roe alleged that the state laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Question
Does the Constitution recognize a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy by abortion?
Conclusion
Inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s choice whether to have an abortion. However, this right is balanced against the government’s interests in protecting women's health and protecting “the potentiality of human life.” The Texas law challenged in this case violated this right.
Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the opinion for the 7-2 majority of the Court.
First, the Court considered whether the case was moot, concluding that it was not. When the subject of litigation is “capable of repetition yet evading review,” a case need not be dismissed as moot. Pregnancy is a “classic justification for a conclusion of nonmootness.”
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state action the right to privacy, and a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion falls within that right to privacy. A state law that broadly prohibits abortion without respect to the stage of pregnancy or other interests violates that right. Although the state has legitimate interests in protecting the health of pregnant women and the “potentiality of human life,” the relative weight of each of these interests varies over the course of pregnancy, and the law must account for this variability.
In the first trimester of pregnancy, the state may not regulate the abortion decision; only the pregnant woman and her attending physician can make that decision. In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health. In the third trimester, once the fetus reaches the point of “viability,” a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, so long as the laws contain exceptions for cases when abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the mother.
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)
Facts of the case
In 1986, the state of Missouri enacted legislation that placed a number of restrictions on abortions. The statute's preamble indicated that "[t]he life of each human being begins at conception," and the law codified the following restrictions: public employees and public facilities were not to be used in performing or assisting abortions unnecessary to save the mother's life; encouragement and counseling to have abortions was prohibited; and physicians were to perform viability tests upon women in their twentieth (or more) week of pregnancy. Lower courts struck down the restrictions.
Question
Did the Missouri restrictions unconstitutionally infringe upon the right to privacy or the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
Conclusion
In a controversial and highly fractured decision, the Court held that none of the challenged provisions of the Missouri legislation were unconstitutional. First, the Court held that the preamble had not been applied in any concrete manner for the purposes of restricting abortions, and thus did not present a constitutional question. Second, the Court held that the Due Process Clause did not require states to enter into the business of abortion, and did not create an affirmative right to governmental aid in the pursuit of constitutional rights. Third, the Court found that no case or controversy existed in relation to the counseling provisions of the law. Finally, the Court upheld the viability testing requirements, arguing that the State's interest in protecting potential life could come into existence before the point of viability. The Court emphasized that it was not revisiting the essential portions of the holding in Roe v. Wade.
Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990)
Facts of the case
Under Section 2 of a Minnesota statute regulating a minor's access to abortion, women under 18 were denied access to the procedure until 48 hours after both their parents had been notified. Exceptions were made in the cases of medical emergencies and women who were victims of parental abuse. Section 6 of the law allowed the courts to judicially bypass Section 2 if the young woman could maturely demonstrate that notification would be unwise.
Question
Did the Minnesota abortion notification statute unconstitutionally restrict a minor's access to having an abortion?
Conclusion
The Court found Section 2 of the statute unconstitutional because requiring notification of both parents, whether or not both wanted to know or had taken responsibility for raising the child, did not serve a legitimate state interest. The Court favored notification of only one parent and a 48 hour waiting period. The Court upheld Section 6 of the law.
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey(1992)
Facts of the case
The Pennsylvania legislature amended its abortion control law in 1988 and 1989. Among the new provisions, the law required informed consent and a 24 hour waiting period prior to the procedure. A minor seeking an abortion required the consent of one parent (the law allows for a judicial bypass procedure). A married woman seeking an abortion had to indicate that she notified her husband of her intention to abort the fetus. These provisions were challenged by several abortion clinics and physicians. A federal appeals court upheld all the provisions except for the husband notification requirement.
Question
Can a state require women who want an abortion to obtain informed consent, wait 24 hours, if married, notify their husbands, and, if minors, obtain parental consent, without violating their right to abortion as guaranteed by Roe v. Wade?
Conclusion
In a bitter 5-to-4 decision, the Court again reaffirmed Roe, but it upheld most of the Pennsylvania provisions. For the first time, the justices imposed a new standard to determine the validity of laws restricting abortions. The new standard asks whether a state abortion regulation has the purpose or effect of imposing an "undue burden," which is defined as a "substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability." Under this standard, the only provision to fail the undue-burden test was the husband notification requirement. In a rare step, the opinion for the Court was crafted and authored by three justices: O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter.
Learn more about the Supreme Court and abortion law in Body Politic, a nonpartisan Oyez resource.
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey Opinion Announcement Opinion Announcement - June 29, 1992 William H. Rehnquist
Planned Parenthood of Southeast Pennsylvania versus Casey and a companion case will be announced by Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter.
Sandra Day O'Connor
These cases come to us on certiorari to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
At issue are five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act.
The petitioner has filed suit in Federal District Court challenging the provisions as spatially unconstitutional.
The District Court found them unconstitutional and enjoin their enforcement.
The Court of Appeals reversed in part and upheld four of the five provisions.
The remaining provision, which would require married women to notify their husbands before obtaining abortion, was found unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals.
By the combination of several separate opinions filed today, the judgment in Number 91902 is affirmed and a judgment in 91744 is affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Justice Kennedy, Justice Souter, and I have filed a joint opinion which is joined in part by Justice Blackmun and Justice Stevens and as to that extent, the opinion of the Court.
Justice Kennedy and Justice Souter will have -- also have something to say about the judgment in these cases.
Both the petitioners and the cross-petitioners as well as the United States as amicus have urged us to reexamine the Court's holding in Roe against Wade decided in 1973.
In a joint opinion filed with the clerk today, we have done so, and we conclude that the central holding of Roe should be reaffirmed.
Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality but that can't control our decision.
Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.
After considering the constitutional questions decided in Roe, the principles underlying the institutional integrity of this Court and the rule of stare decisis, we reaffirm the constitutionally protected liberty of the woman to decide to have an abortion before the fetus attains viability and to obtain it without undo interference from the State.
We also reaffirm the State's power to restrict abortion after fetal viability if exceptions are made for the woman's life or health is in danger.
We also hold the State has legitimate interest from the outset of pregnancy and protecting the health of the mother and the life of the fetus that may become a child, and that the State may further these interests so long as it does not unduly burden the woman's right to choose.
Applying our analysis to the Pennsylvania Statutes challenged here, we uphold with some exceptions four of the five challenged provisions.
We find that the definition of medical emergency a requirement of informed consent, a requirement of parental consent, and a recordkeeping in reporting requirements do not impose undue burdens on a woman's right to choose whether she will terminate her pregnancy before viability.
We conclude however that the husband notification requirement unduly burdens this right and as for that reason unconstitutional.
Anthony M. Kennedy
The -- the essential holding of Roe versus Wade, the holding that we today retain and reaffirm has three parts.
First is a recognition of the right of the woman to choose to have an abortion before viability and to obtain it without undue interference by the State.
Before viability, the State's interests are not so strong to support a prohibition of abortion or the imposition of a substantial obstacle to the woman's effective right to elect to that procedure.
Second is a confirmation of the State's power to restrict abortion after fetal viability if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies which endanger a woman's life or health.
And third is the principle that the State has legitimate interest from the outset of pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child.
These principles do not contradict each other and we adhere to each.
Our cases recognize the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.
Our precedents "have respected the private realm of family life which the state cannot enter."
These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.
These considerations begin our analysis of the woman's interest in terminating her pregnancy but cannot end it for the liberty at stake is in a sense unique to the human condition and so unique to the law.
The mother who carries a child to full term is subject to anxieties, to physical constraints, to pain that only she must bear, that these sacrifices have from the beginning of the human race been endured by woman with a pride that ennobles her in the eyes of others and gives to the infant a bond of love cannot alone be grounds for the State to insist that she make the sacrifice.
Her suffering is too intimate and personal for the State to insist, without more, upon its own vision of the woman's role, however dominant that vision has been in the course of our history and of our culture.
The destiny of the woman must be shaped to a large extent on her own conception of her spiritual imperatives and her place in society.
Now for these basic reasons, the essential judgment in Roe versus Wade was well within our constitutional heritage.
Yet it must be remembered that Roe versus Wade speaks with clarity in establishing not only the woman's liberty but also the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life.
That portion of the decision in Roe has been given too little acknowledgement and implementation by the Court in its subsequent cases.
Roe established a trimester framework to govern abortion regulations.
That trimester framework no doubt was erected to ensure that the woman's right to choose not become so subordinate to the State's interest in promoting fetal life that her choice exists in theory, but not in fact.
We do not agree, however, that the trimester approach is necessary to accomplish this objective.
Though the woman has a right to choose, to terminate or continue her pregnancy before viability, it does not at all follow that the State is prohibited from taking steps to ensure that her choice is thoughtful and informed.
Under the standard, we would adopt so long as it does not place a substantial obstacle in the path of the woman's choice.
Throughout the woman's pregnancy the State may enact measures designed to persuade the women to choose child birth over abortion.
To put it another way, the State may not place an undue burden on the woman's right to choose an abortion.
Today, we hold that the requirement that a married woman inform her husband before she undergoes an abortion is invalid.
Most married women who seek abortions inform their husbands of their own volition.
For these women, the regulation is irrelevant.
The regulation is targeted at women who would not otherwise choose to inform their husbands.
The record shows that the reason many of these women do not inform their husbands is that they have good reason to fear abuse.
The husband's interest in the life of the child his wife is carrying does not permit the State to empower him with this troubling degree of authority over his wife.
A husband has no enforceable right to require a wife to advise him before she exercises her personal choices, and a State may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over their children.
The notification provision is invalid.
As Justice O'Connor has indicated with one exception, we uphold the other challenged provisions of the statute on the basis of the record before and in the context of this facial challenge.
We cannot say that the petitioners have shown that any of these provisions places a substantial obstacle in the path of the woman's choice.
The exception is the portion of the reporting statute which requires a woman to supply the reason she did not provide notice to her husband before obtaining an abortion.
We hold this provision invalid for the same reason that the husband notification requirement itself is invalid.
David H. Souter
When Justice O'Connor and Justice Kennedy have spoken about the application of the undue burden standard in implementing the central holding of the Roe Case and about the conception of personal liberty that is one of the grounds supporting our decision to adhere to that holding.
That holding rested of course not only on a concept of liberty but also on an assessment of the state interest asserted to restrict the exercise of that liberty.
It is unnecessary for us to decide and we do not say whether we would have resolved the opposing personal and governmental claims as the Roe Court did.
Instead, it suffices to explain that a foundation for our decision today is the conclusion that if there was error in Roe, its significance is outweighed by the importance of following prior precedent.
The principles on which we measured that importance not only support but require adherence to Roe's central holding.
A presumption in favor of stare decisis of standing by the resolution of an issue reached in a prior case is necessary not only to accomplish the mundane tasks of any legal system but to realize our hope for a stable society aspiring to the rule of law.
At the least that, that ideal requires a system characterized in the name by the continuity of rules over time.
Except in the instance of a ruling so clearly erroneous is to be for that very reason unenforceable our decisions to adhere to holdings of prior cases or in exceptional circumstances to overrule them are informed by a series of prudential inquiries which in this instance provide reasons to adhere to Roe's central holding.
Despite the controversy it has produced, the decision has not proven unworkable in practice, it is undoubtedly engendered reliance and countless people who have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society in the two decades since it was handed down.
It is not been rendered doctrinally anachronistic by other legal developments in the past 20 years and the factual premises on which it rests are no different today from those on which the ruling rested initially.
A decision to adhere to Roe's central holding would therefore be appropriate in accordance with the customary indications of precedential force.
But to rest the decision on those customary indications alone would fail to explain the decision completely for it would fail to take account of the cost of ignoring principals of stare decisis when ask to overrule a case with the very rare significance of Roe.
Roe's extraordinary dimension is imparted by the fact that the Court's constitutional decision in that case called the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution.
The Court is not asked to do this very often having thus address the nation only twice in our lifetime and the decisions of Brown v. Board of Education and Roe itself.
But when the Court does act in this way, its decision requires an equally rare precedential force.
Whatever the premises of opposition may be only the most convincing justification under accepted standards of precedent would suffice to demonstrate that a later decision overruling the first was anything but a surrender to political pressure and then an unjustified repudiation of the principal on which the Court states its authority in the first instance.
So to overrule in the absence of the most compelling reason to reexamine a watershed decision would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question.
To all those who will be tested by following the Court's decision in a watershed case like Roe, the Court implicitly undertakes to remain steadfast.
The promise of constancy once given binds the Court for as long as the power to standby the decision survives and the understanding of the issue has not changed so fundamentally is to render that commitment obsolete.
A willing breach of it would be nothing less than a breach of faith and no Court that broke its faith with the people could sensibly expect credit for principle in the decision by which it did that.
It is true that diminished legitimacy may be restored but only slowly.
Unlike the political branches, a Court thus weakened could not seek to regain its position with a new mandate from the voters, and even if the Court could somehow go to the polls, the loss of its principled character could not be retrieved by the casting of so many votes.
Like the character of an individual, the legitimacy of the Court must be earned over time.
If the Court's legitimacy should be undermined, the country would also, in its variability to see itself through its constitutional ideals.
The Court's concern with legitimacy is not for the sake of the Court but for the sake of the nation to which it is responsible.
The Court's duty in the present case is clear.
In 1973, it confronted the already-divisive issue of governmental power to limit personal choice to undergo abortion, for which it provided a new resolution based on the due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
A decision to overrule Roe's essential holding under the existing circumstances would address error, if error there was, at the cost of both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court's legitimacy, and to the Nation's commitment to the rule of law.
It is therefore imperative to adhere to the essence of Roe's original decision, and we do so today in striking down a portion of the Pennsylvania statute.
William H. Rehnquist
Justice Stevens has filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Justice Blackmun has filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part.
I have filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part in which Justices White, Scalia and Thomas have joined.
Under our system of government, unless the Constitution speaks to an issue, the matter is one for resolution by the legislatures even if the Court deems those resolutions unwise.
Nineteen years ago in Roe against Wade, this Court decided that the Constitution establishes a woman's fundamental right to obtain an abortion and thereafter, the Court acted, in our view, as a sort national legislature on this issue imposing a complex abortion code on the States.
Today, only two members of this court still claim that Court's decision in Roe was correct.
In their joint opinion, Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter do not say that the decision in Roe was correct but they -- they conclude what they call its "central holding" must be retained to serve the principle of stare decisis.
Stare decisis is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as meaning to abide by or adhere to decided cases.
It is clear however that the joined opinion does not apply that principal in dealing with Roe.
Roe decided that a woman has a fundamental right to an abortion.
The joint opinion rejects that view.
Roe decided that abortion regulations were to be subjected to strict scrutiny and could be justified only in the light of compelling state interest.
The joint opinion rejects that view.
Roe analyzed abortion regulation under a rigid trimester framework, a framework which has guided this Court's decision making for 19 years.
The joint opinion rejects that framework and cases following Roe are overruled.
The analysis in Roe is replaced by what is called the "undue burden test" which does not command the majority of this Court even today.
This is surely not stare decisis as we have known it up until now.
The joint opinion expresses the view that the solution it has come up whether it's necessary to save the legitimacy of the Court.
It expresses concern that a complete reversal of this -- on this intensely divisive issue would be viewed as a surrender to political pressure in response to our decision in Roe, but the joint opinion's insistent -- insistence on preserving the form, if not the substance of rule, can just easily be viewed as a surrender to those who have brought political pressure in favor of that decision.
Once the Court starts looking to the currents of public opinion regarding a particular judgment, it enters a truly bottomless pit from which there is simply no extracting itself.
The special rule for intensely divisive cases depends on a completely amorphous standard quite formed to our established doctrine of stare decisis with respect to constitutional cases.
Justice White, Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas and I are of the opinion that the Court did err in Roe when it determined that the Constitution includes a fundamental right to abortion.
We believed in accordance with the views expressed in Webster versus Reproductive Health Services, decided several terms ago, that a woman has a liberty interest under the due process clause in obtaining an abortion but that the State may regulate abortion procedures in ways that are rationally related to a legitimate state interest.
Applying this test, we will uphold each of the Pennsylvania regulations challenged in this case.
Justice Scalia has filed a dissenting opinion in which I, Justice White and Justice Thomas have joined.
Vacco v. Quill (1997)
Facts of the case
Dr. Timothy E. Quill, along with other physicians and three seriously ill patients who have since died, challenged the constitutionality of the New York State's ban on physician-assisted suicide. New York's ban, while permitting patients to refuse lifesaving treatment on their own, has historically made it a crime for doctors to help patients commit or attempt suicide, even if patients are terminally ill or in great pain. Following a District Court ruling favoring the State of New York, the Second Circuit reversed and the Supreme Court granted New York certiorari.
Question
Did New York's ban on physician-assisted suicide violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by allowing competent terminally ill adults to withdraw their own lifesaving treatment, but denying the same right to patients who could not withdraw their own treatment and could only hope that a physician would do so for them?
Conclusion
No. Employing a rationality test to examine the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause, the Court held that New York's ban was rationally related to the state's legitimate interest in protecting medical ethics, preventing euthanasia, shielding the disabled and terminally ill from prejudice which might encourage them to end their lives, and, above all, the preservation of human life. Moreover, while acknowledging the difficulty of its task, the Court distinguished between the refusal of lifesaving treatment and assisted suicide, by noting that the latter involves the criminal elements of causation and intent. No matter how noble a physician's motives may be, he may not deliberately cause, hasten, or aid a patient's death.
Opinion Announcement - June 26, 1997
I have the opinions of the Court to announce in three cases.
The first of them is No. 95-1858, Vacco against Quill.
In New York, as in most States, it is a crime to assist a suicide, but patients are allowed to refuse unwanted medical treatment even if that treatment is necessary to save their lives.
The question presented in this case is whether this distinction is so irrational that it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The respondents here are New York doctors and they argue that refusing life sustaining medical treatment is really the same thing as physician-assisted suicide and so it does violate the Equal Protection Clause to permit one but not the other.
The District Court rejected this argument but the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed with it.
Under the Equal Protection Clause, States must treat -- must treat light cases alike but may treat unlike cases accordingly.
That is the proposition which we have followed for a long time and follow here and we therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Respondents, as I have said, contend that some terminally ill people, those who are on life-support treatments are -- systems are treated differently than those who are not because the former may hasten death by ending treatment, but the latter may not hasten death through physician-assisted suicide.
This argument assumes though that ending lifesaving treatment is the same thing as assisting --assisted suicide and we reject this assumption.
The distinction between assisting suicide and ending life-sustaining treatment is widely recognized and endorsed in the medical profession and in our legal traditions.
In our opinion, we focus primarily on two important differences between the two practices.
First, a patient who commits physician assisted -- assisted suicide is killed by the lethal drug provided by the doctor, but when a patient refuses life-sustaining medical treatment he dies from his underlying disease or condition.
Second, a physician who honors a patient's request to end unwanted treatment does not necessarily intend that the patient die.
He may only intend to respect his patient's wishes and to cease doing futile or degrading things to the patient.
On the other hand, the doctor who assists suicide must necessarily intend primarily that the patient be made dead.
The law has long distinguished between actions taken because of a given result from actions taken in spite of they are intended but unforeseen consequences.
It is therefore not surprising that many courts, including this court in the -- our recent Cruzan opinion and the overwhelming majority of legislatures have drawn a clear line between assisting suicide and ending -- ending unwanted treatment.
We therefore reject respondent's claim that the distinction between the two is irrational or arbitrary.
Logic and contemporary practice support New York's judgment that the two acts are different and the Constitution permits New York to treat them differently.
Justice O'Connor has filed a concurring opinion which Justices Ginsburg and Breyer join in part.
Justice Stevens -- Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, and Breyer had filed opinions concurring in the judgment.
Washington v. Glucksberg (1997)
Facts of the case
Dr. Harold Glucksberg -- along with four other physicians, three terminally ill patients who have since died, and a nonprofit organization that counsels individuals contemplating physician assisted-suicide -- brought this suit challenging the state of Washington's ban on physician assisted-suicide. The State of Washington has historically criminalized the promotion of suicide attempts by those who "knowingly cause or aid another person to attempt suicide." Glucksberg alleged that Washington's ban was unconstitutional. Following a District Court ruling favoring Glucksberg and his fellow petitioners, the Ninth Circuit affirmed and the Supreme Court granted Washington certiorari.
Question
Did Washington's ban on physician assisted-suicide violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause by denying competent terminally ill adults the liberty to choose death over life?
Conclusion
No. Analyzing the guarantees of the Due Process Clause, the Court focused on two primary aspects: the protection of our nation's objective fundamental, historically rooted, rights and liberties; and the cautious definition of what constitutes a due process liberty interest. The Court held that the right to assisted suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause since its practice has been, and continues to be, offensive to our national traditions and practices. Moreover, employing a rationality test, the Court held that Washington's ban was rationally related to the state's legitimate interest in protecting medical ethics, shielding disabled and terminally ill people from prejudice which might encourage them to end their lives, and, above all, the preservation of human life.
Washington v. Glucksberg Opinion Announcement - June 26, 1997 William H. Rehnquist
The second opinion which I have to announce is Washington against Glucksberg, No. 96-110, and this case too deals with physician-assisted suicide.
In Washington State, it is a crime to knowingly cause or aid another person to commit suicide.
The question presented here is whether this prohibition on assisted suicide violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Respondents are doctors who claim that competent, terminally ill adults have a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide.
The en banc Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, relying primarily on our decision in Cruzan and Planned Parenthood versus Casey agreed.
That court held that the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment includes the right to choose the time and manner of one’s death and that the Washington statute was therefore unconstitutional.
In an opinion filed today with the Clerk, we reverse that judgment.
In our opinion, we review, at length, our nation’s history, traditions, and practice relating to suicide and assisting suicide.
Washington’s assisted suicide ban is no innovation.
Quite the contrary, for centuries, our Anglo-American legal tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved the both suicide and assisting suicide.
It is true that attitudes towards suicide itself have changed over the years, but it is still regarded as a grave public wrong.
Today, because of advances in medicine and technology, Americans are increasingly likely to die in institutions.
This fact has focused public attention on the question of how to protect people’s dignity and independence at the end of life.
As a result, many states now permit living wills and the withdrawal or refusal of life sustaining medical treatment.
At the same time, however, voters and legislators continue to reaffirm the longstanding prohibition on assisting suicide.
Turning now, the respondent’s constitutional claim, it is established that Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides heightened protection for certain fundamental rights such as the right to marry, to have children, to refuse unwanted medical treatment.
Out of respect for the democratic process and to prevent judges from over reaching in its often difficult area, we have repeatedly emphasized that fundamental rights are those that are deeply rooted in our nation’s tradition.
We have also insisted that the fundamental right at issue in a particular due process case be framed rather precisely.
Thus, the issue before us today is not the broad question of whether there is a constitutional right to determine the time and manner of one’s death but instead whether the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause includes a right to commit physician-assisted suicide.
To hold for respondents, we would have to reverse centuries of legal doctrine and practice and strike down the considered policy choice of almost every state.
Respondent’s argument is supported neither by tradition nor by our case in Cruzan decision.
We therefore conclude that the asserted right to assistant in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause.
We also conclude that it is rationally related to legitimate state interest.
Washington has valid interest in protecting all human lives from beginning to end and preventing suicide, treating depression, preserving the integrity and ethics of the medical profession, and in protecting the poor, the elderly, and disabled persons from abuse, neglect, and prejudice and in preventing a Netherlands style slide to voluntary and perhaps even involuntary euthanasia.
We therefore hold that Washington’s ban on assisted suicide does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Justice O’Connor has filed a concurring opinion in which Justices Ginsburg and Breyer join in part; Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer have filed opinions concurring in the judgment.
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