Doe v. Mathews

420 F. Supp. 865, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12929
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedOctober 1, 1976
DocketCiv. 76-1912
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 420 F. Supp. 865 (Doe v. Mathews) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Doe v. Mathews, 420 F. Supp. 865, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12929 (D.N.J. 1976).

Opinion

OPINION

BIUNNO, District Judge.

This case is before the court on an application for an order to show cause, with temporary restraint, why the defendant Mathews (Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, HEW), should not be enjoined pendente lite from enforcing the so-called “Hyde Amendment”, a provision of the Appropriations Act for the Department of Labor and HEW. That act, embodying the Hyde Amendment, evidently became law on September 30, 1976 by virtue of the vote, in both Houses of Congress (67 to 15 in the Senate, and 312 to 93 in the House) to override a presidential veto of the bill, see U.S.Const., Art. I, § 7, cl. 2, requiring a two-thirds vote for that purpose.

The law involved is an appropriations law, for the two departments mentioned, covering the new fiscal year October 1,1976 through September 30, 1977. The portion of that law which is challenged, the Hyde Amendment, is a single sentence which reads:

“None of the funds contained in this Act shall be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term.”

Taken literally, the language may be said to be inapt, and so requires construction. No funds are “contained” in any Act; funds are contained only in the Treasury. Nor are funds “used” to “perform” abortions; instruments, medications or other means may be used to “perform” abortions and funds are pertinent only to the extent that they are payment for the application of those means. In all that follows, the sense and meaning of the challenged sentence will be taken as the equivalent of saying that:

“No appropriation made by this Act is authorized by law to be paid for performing abortions, except where the abortion is medically indicated to avoid endangering the life of the mother if the fetus were carried to term.”

Read in this sense, the claim advanced is that the Hyde Amendment is unconstitutional in respect to (a) females who are or may become pregnant, who are otherwise eligible for medical and hospital services for pregnancy under the Medicaid laws, and *867 who desire abortions for which the appropriation act does not appropriate federal funds by virtue of the Hyde Amendment; (b) physicians who provide abortions to pregnant females desiring them and who receive payment therefor under the Medicaid laws; (c) the Planned Parenthood of Hudson County, Inc., (PPHC), a N.J. nonprofit corporation, which operates a clinic (the Hudson Health Center) at which first trimester abortions are performed, and which receives payment therefor under the Medicaid laws.

On behalf of these 3 sets of plaintiffs, a total of 7 causes of action are set out in the complaint. These subdivide as follows:

For the plaintiff Jane Doe, the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Seventh causes of action assert that the restriction of the Hyde Amendment creates an invidious discrimination (as between one who can afford elective abortions without Medicaid and one who cannot); deprives her of the right to control her own person as well as of the rights of privacy and liberty in matters relating to marriage, sex, procreation and the family; coerces her (in future) to be irreversibly sterilized rather than risk a pregnancy that cannot be aborted; and constitutes an establishment of religion. These effects are claimed to violate the First, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments.

For the plaintiff physicians, the Fifth Cause of Action asserts that pregnant women consult them, and for many of such women they would, “in the exercise of their best professional judgment, concur in the women’s decisions” to have an abortion performed and would so perform. The Hyde Amendment, as to physicians, is said to deprive them of their “right to practice medicine in accordance with their best medical judgment”; would deprive them of their right to give (and their patients to receive) “appropriate and adequate medical treatment and advice” relating to whether to terminate a given pregnancy; and would deprive them of their right to receive substantial income from abortion services rendered to Medicaid patients in violation of their right to receive fees for such services. These effects are said to violate the First, Fourth, Fifth and Ninth Amendments.

For the plaintiff PPHC, the Sixth Cause of Action says that denial of reimbursement for abortions for Medicaid patients would prevent it from continuing its program for such services and deprive it from receiving fees therefor. This is said to violate the Fifth Amendment.

OUTLINE OF THE MEDICAID PROGRAM

The complaint, the moving papers and the brief for plaintiffs focus on the challenges to the Hyde Amendment, with scant discussion of the structure and working of the Medicaid laws. Yet, to provide perspective to the claims made, some basic context of the law within which the particular and detailed conflict occurs is essential. What follows is the court’s general understanding of that basic context.

The Medicaid law was passed in 1965 as a supplement (Title XIX) to the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1396a. This enabling legislation contemplates a program under which the States may enact Medicaid statutes and adopt plans to pay for various kinds of health services (i. e., medical, hospital, dental, pharmaceutical, prosthetic, optometric, etc.), part of the cost of which is reimbursable to the States by the federal government.

No State is obliged to enact a Medicaid law or plan. If it does, it must at least enact a law to pay for Medicaid services to all persons eligible for welfare (categorical aid), the eligible services to meet a specified minimum enumeration. If a State enacts no Medicaid law, or enacts one not meeting the minimum Title XIX requirements, it is potentially not eligible for reimbursement of any of the costs of its own program.

A State may also elect to enact an expanded Medicaid law to provide payment for health services not only to benefit those eligible for welfare benefits, but also to others, not so eligible, who are medically indigent or needy; i. e., their income is too high to qualify for welfare benefits, but is *868 not high enough to be able to meet some kinds of health expenses. The kinds of services which a State may choose to pay for if it covers the medically needy is more flexible than those to be provided for those eligible for welfare benefits.

Obviously, the structure of the Medicaid program is one that is more limited than the kinds of publicly financed health programs that have been enacted in England and the Scandanavian countries, for example. Also, it is a program designed to stimulate the States, rather than the federal government, to adopt health care programs. The stimulus is the “carrot” of partial federal refunding. States might hesitate to enact a health services law by themselves in view of the potentially enormous cost, and the difficulty of administering and controlling problems of eligibility, utilization and the like. The receipt of a federal share to help meet the direct and administrative costs has induced some States to enact Medicaid laws. New Jersey is one of them, P.L.1968, c. 413, N.J.S.A. 30:4D-1 et seq.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Karcher v. Kean
479 A.2d 403 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1984)
Greenberg v. Bolger
497 F. Supp. 756 (E.D. New York, 1980)
City of Camden v. Byrne
411 A.2d 462 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1980)
Hodgson v. Board of County Commissioners
614 F.2d 601 (Eighth Circuit, 1980)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
420 F. Supp. 865, 1976 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12929, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/doe-v-mathews-njd-1976.