Gainesville Woman Care, LLC v. State of Florida

210 So. 3d 1243, 42 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 183, 2017 WL 633772, 2017 Fla. LEXIS 340
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedFebruary 16, 2017
DocketSC16-381
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 210 So. 3d 1243 (Gainesville Woman Care, LLC v. State of Florida) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gainesville Woman Care, LLC v. State of Florida, 210 So. 3d 1243, 42 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 183, 2017 WL 633772, 2017 Fla. LEXIS 340 (Fla. 2017).

Opinions

PARIENTE, J.

The issue in this case is whether the trial court properly applied strict scrutiny when reviewing the Mandatory Delay Law, which imposes an additional twenty-four hour waiting period on women seeking to terminate their pregnancies. See ch. 2015-118 § 1, Laws of Fla. (codified at § 390.0111(3), Fla. Stat. (2015)) (“Mandatory Delay Law”). The Mandatory Delay Law implicates the Florida Constitution’s express right of privacy. In Florida, any law that implicates the fundamental right of privacy, regardless of the activity, is subject to strict scrutiny and, therefore, presumptively unconstitutional. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court correctly applied strict scrutiny in reviewing the Mandatory Delay Law’s constitutionality.

We conclude that the First District Court of Appeal misapplied and misconstrued our precedent by placing the initial evidentiary burden on Petitioners to prove a “significant restriction” on Florida’s constitutional right of privacy before subjecting the Mandatory Delay Law to strict scrutiny. State v. Gainesville Woman Care, LLC, 187 So.3d 279, 282 (Fla. 1st DCA 2016).1 Put simply, there is no additional evidentiary burden on challengers to establish by sufficient, factually supported findings showing a law imposes a “significant restriction” on the right of privacy [1246]*1246before a law that implicates the right of privacy is subjected to strict scrutiny.

Florida’s constitutional right of privacy contained in article I, section 23, establishes the right of every person to “be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into [one’s] private life.” Art. I, § 28, Fla. Const. Because the right of privacy is a fundamental right within Florida’s constitution, this Court consistently has required that any law intruding on this right is presumptively unconstitutional and must be justified by a “compelling state interest” which the law serves or protects through the “least restrictive means.” Winfield v. Div. of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, Dep’t of Bus. Regulation, 477 So.2d 544, 547 (Fla. 1985); see also N. Fla. Women’s Health & Counseling Servs., Inc. v. Florida, 866 So.2d 612, 632 (Fla. 2003); In re T.W., 551 So.2d 1186, 1191-92 (Fla. 1989).

Because the Mandatory Delay Law infringes on a woman’s right of privacy, the State bore the burden at the temporary injunction hearing to prove that the Mandatory Delay Law survives strict scrutiny. The State, however, presented no evidence of a compelling state interest, much less that the law served such an interest through the least restrictive means. In addition, the First District disregarded the fact that the challengers did present evidence, which the trial court properly relied on, that the Mandatory Delay Law would result in additional costs and additional trips to the physician and that any delay could affect the type of procedure being performed.

Beyond placing an additional initial evi-dentiary burden on Petitioners, the First District also misinterpreted and misconstrued our precedent concerning the right of privacy by requiring, on remand, that the trial court consider a list of speculative state interests, none of which this Court has ever recognized as compelling. Gainesville Woman Care, 187 So.3d at 282. The trial court, on the other hand, correctly applied strict scrutiny in determining Petitioners’ likelihood of success on the merits because the law, both facially and based on evidence presented, clearly infringes on the constitutional right of privacy. Petitioners presented unrebutted evidence establishing that the Mandatory Delay Law impedes a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy for at least an additional twenty-four hours and requires the woman to make a second, medically unnecessary trip, which adds additional costs and delay. As Dr. Christine Curry stated in a verified affidavit, which the trial court considered:

Such delays may push women past the gestational limit when medication abortion is available. This will force women for whom a medication abortion is clinically indicated to undergo a procedure that is less safe for them. It will also force a woman who prefers a medication abortion for psychological reasons to undergo a surgical abortion, which may harm her emotional and psychological state, and this pertains especially to victims of sexual trauma. In other cases, delays may push women past the gestational limit of the nearest abortion provider, forcing them to travel farther. This, in turn, is very likely to create further delay, increasing the risks of the procedure.

Some may disagree and argue that the State should force women to endure an additional twenty-four hour waiting period after they have chosen to terminate their pregnancy, regardless of the fact that such a waiting period is not required of any other medical procedure including those gynecological procedures that are far more risky than termination of pregnancy. Whether it is a good idea to mandate that women seeking to terminate their pregnancies wait a minimum of an additional [1247]*1247twenty-four hours before allowing them to receive medical treatment is not the point. As Petitioners cogently explain, women may take as long as they need to make this deeply personal decision both before and after they receive the state-mandated information. But through the Mandatory Delay Law, the State impermissibly interferes with women’s fundamental right of privacy by mandating an additional twenty-four hour waiting period before a woman may exercise her decision after receiving all of the information the state deems necessary to make an educated and informed decision.

We recognize that a woman’s right to choose remains a highly emotional issue that still divides our country many decades after the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973). Indeed, a substantial minority in this country believe that women should have no right to choose to terminate a pregnancy at any time after conception.2 We emphasize that this case has nothing to do with when the State’s interest in restricting women’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy based on the viability of the fetus becomes compelling.

We agree with the trial court that, based on this Court’s precedent, Petitioners have established a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, one of the requirements of granting a temporary injunction, as well as all other grounds for the entry of a temporary injunction. For reasons more fully explained below, we quash the First District’s decision with instructions that the temporary injunction and accompanying stay of the Mandatory Delay Law remain in effect pending a hearing on Petitioners’ request for a permanent injunction.

FLORIDA’S MANDATORY DELAY LAW

Florida’s general informed consent law requires that, for a patient to give valid, informed consent to any medical treatment in Florida, the health care professional must conform to “an accepted standard of medical practice among members of the medical profession” and provide information conveying three things: (1) the nature of the procedure, (2) the medically acceptable alternatives to the procedure, and (3) the procedure’s substantial risks. § 766.103(3)(a)1.-2., Fla. Stat. (2016). In addition, in 1997, the Florida Legislature passed the ‘Woman’s Right to Know Act,” an informed consent statute specific to procedures involving the termination of pregnancies. Ch. 97-151, Laws of Fla.

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

Related

Timothy W. Fletcher v. State of Florida
Supreme Court of Florida, 2025
RPSS Group, LLC v. Miami Chassis & Alignment, Inc.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, 2025
Jay R. Chernoff v. City of North Miami Beach
District Court of Appeal of Florida, 2024
Allegheny Reprod. Health v. PA DHS
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 2024
L&K CREATION, LLC, etc. v. WHITE FEATHER MANAGMENT, LLC, etc.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, 2023
IN RE: JANE DOE vs
District Court of Appeal of Florida, 2023
Wrigley v. Romanick
2023 ND 50 (North Dakota Supreme Court, 2023)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
210 So. 3d 1243, 42 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 183, 2017 WL 633772, 2017 Fla. LEXIS 340, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gainesville-woman-care-llc-v-state-of-florida-fla-2017.