Commonwealth v. Page

303 A.2d 215, 451 Pa. 331, 1973 Pa. LEXIS 533

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: March 29, 1973
• Docket: Appeals, 95 and 163
• Status: Published

Opinions

Opinion by

Mb. Chief Justice Jones,

We have consolidated these two appeals because both involve the constitutionality of our criminal statutes proscribing abortions.¹

On October 21, 1968, Barry Page, a motorcycle mechanic with medical training as a Merchant Marine corpsman, pled guilty to the performance of two abortions.² Page’s guilty plea resulted in his conviction and a sentence of two-to-five years’ imprisonment. There was no direct appeal, but Page did seek, and obtain, relief under Post Conviction Hearing Act provisions, Act of January 25, 1966, P. L. (1965) 1580, 19 P.S. §1180-1 et seq.3 The Court of Common Pleas of Centre County ruled that the anti-abortion statute, Section 718 of the act, was unconstitutional. Pursuant to Section 202(9) of the Appellate Court Jurisdiction Act, Act of July 31, 1970, P. L. 673, §202(9), 17 P.S. §211.202(9), the Commonwealth has taken a direct appeal to this Court upon the order granting Page’s Post Conviction Hearing Act petition.

Benjamin King, M.D., was convicted of performing an abortion which resulted in the death of his patient.3 ⁴ After disposition of post-trial motions which did not include a constitutional challenge to the abortion-causing death statute,⁵ Hi*. King was sentenced to two-to-five years’ imprisonment by the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. An appeal was taken by Dr. King to the Superior Court, which certified the appeal to us because of the pendency of the Page appeal.⁶

It is important, though not critical for the purpose of passing upon these appeals, that Dr. King and Barry Page were prosecuted under separate sections of the act. Page was prosecuted under Section 718, the antiabortion statute which proscribes the procurement of a pregnant woman’s miscarriage by any means with “unlawful”⁷ intent. Dr. King was charged with a violation of Section 71.9 which punishes the procurement of a miscarriage causing the death of the pregnant woman or the “child” with which she is “quick.” Our scrutiny of Sections 718 and 719 of the act does not permit a material despecification of these sections from the Texas anti-abortion statutes which were struck down by the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).⁸ Because we deem the difference between the Texas and Pennsylvania statutes inappreciable in the application of Roe v. Wade, we hold that Sections 718 and 719 are unconstitutional as violative of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because these provisions fail to comport with the permissible scope of state regulation of abortion.⁹

Because Sections 718 and 719 are unconstitutional the prosecutions of Page and King, commenced under the provisions of these statutes, cannot sustain the convictions thus obtained.¹⁰

The order of the Centre County Court of Common Pleas is affirmed and the judgment of sentence of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas is reversed.

Mr. Justice Manderino concurs in the result.

1 Ҥ718

“Whoever, with intent to procure the miscarriage of any woman, unlawfully administers to her any poison, drug or substance, or unlawfully uses any instrument, or other means, with the like intent, is guilty of felony, and upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding three thousand dollars ($3,000), or undergo imprisonment by separate or solitary confinement at labor not exceeding five (5) years, or both.

Ҥ719

“Whoever unlawfully administers to any woman, pregnant or quick with child, or supposed and believed to be pregnant or quick with child, any drug, poison or other substance, or unlawfully uses any instrument or other means, with the intent to procure the miscarriage of such woman, resulting in the death of such woman, or any child with which she may be quick, is guilty of felony, and upon conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding six thousand dollars ($6,000), or undergo imprisonment by separate or solitary confinement at labor not exceeding ten (10) years, or both.” Act of June 24, 1939, P. B. 872, §§718-719, 18 P.S. §§4718-4719.

2 Both operations were successfully performed and each “patient” survived the procedure without physical impairment.

3 The Commonwealth does not argue that Page “waived” the constitutional question by failing to raise it on direct appeal. Though the “waiver” concept has recognized the legitimate need for procedural regularity, if the Commonwealth is not inclined to argue the issue, we should not raise it sua sponte.

4 In the course of the abortion, Dr. King perforated the decedent’s cervix. She sustained peritonitis, massive hemorrhaging and, as a consequence, suffered severe traumatic shock. The patient expired on December 30, 1967, two days after the abortion procedure.

5 While generally we will not consider issues, on direct appeal, which were not presented in post-trial motions (Commonwealth v. Donovan, 447 Pa. 450, 291 A. 2d 116 (1972) ; Commonwealth v. Jacobs, 445 Pa. 364, 284 A. 2d 717 (1971) ; Commonwealth v. Bittner, 441 Pa. 216, 272 A. 2d 484 (1971)), we have enunciated an exception to that rule when, as here, the issue is one of public policy. Commonwealth v. Dessus, 423 Pa. 177, 187, 224 A. 2d 188, 193 (1966) ; Muse-Art Corp. v. Philadelphia, 373 Pa. 329, 95 A. 2d 542 (1953) ; Schline v. Kine, 301 Pa. 586, 152 A. 845 (1930).

6 Approximately four and one-half months after the disposition of Dr. King’s post-trial motions, the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, Civil Division, declared Section 718, the anti-abortion statute, unconstitutionally vague and violative of due process. Berman v. Duggan, 119 P.L.X 226 (1971). Berman was not appealed to this Court.

7 Although appellee Page argues that Section 718 suffers from unconstitutional vagueness because of the unqualified use of “unlawful,” we reach our decision here on other grounds according with the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 313 (1973). Bee, also, Doe v. Bolten, 410 U.S. 179 (3973). We need not consider the “vagueness” argument.

8 The Texas statutes considered and invalidated by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, which resemble Sections 718 and 719 of our anti-abortion act, are articles 1191 and 1194 of the Texas State Penal Code:

“Article 1191. Abortion.

“If any person shall designedly administer to a pregnant woman or knowingly procure to be administered with her consent any drug or medicine, or shall use towards her any violence or means whatever externally or internally applied, and thereby procure an abortion, he shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years; if it be done without her consent, the punishment shall be doubled. By ‘abortion’ is meant that the life of the fetus or embryo shall be destroyed in the woman’s womb or that a premature birth thereof be caused.

“Article 1194. Murder in producing abortion.

“If the death of the mother is occasioned by an abortion so produced or by an attempt to effect the same it is murder.”

That the Supreme Court considered the Texas statutes and our anti-abortion provisions “similar”, for purposes of the application of the decision in Roe v. Wade, is evidenced by the inclusion of a citation to Sections 718 and 719 of our act in Mr. Justice Blackmdh’s footnote to his textual statement that “[sjimilar statutes are in existence in a majority of the States.2” 410 U.S. at 118.

9 The permissible regulatory role of the States is carefully delineated by Mr. Justice Blackmun :

“(a) For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician.

“(b) For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health.

“(c) For the stage subsequent to viability the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” 410 U.S. at 164.

10 It is important to note that the Supreme Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Blackmun, in delineating the permissible scope of state regulation of abortion in Roe v. Wade, allowed that the state could “proscribe any abortion by a person who is not a physician [as ‘physician’ is defined by the State].” 410 U.S. at 165. We do not hold hero that the Commonwealth could not have proceeded against Barry Page for the lay practice of gynecology and obstetrics had it chosen to proceed under the Medical Practice Act, Act of June 3, 1911, P. L. 639, §2, as amended, 63 P.S. §401a.