Jane L. v. Bangerter

102 F.3d 1112, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 33375, 1996 WL 732494
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedDecember 23, 1996
DocketNos. 93-4044, 93-4059
StatusPublished
Cited by71 cases

This text of 102 F.3d 1112 (Jane L. v. Bangerter) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jane L. v. Bangerter, 102 F.3d 1112, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 33375, 1996 WL 732494 (10th Cir. 1996).

Opinion

SEYMOUR, Chief Judge.

In Jane L. v. Bangerter, 61 F.3d 1493 (10th Cir.1995) (Jane L. IV), this court considered the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Utah laws regulating abortions. The Utah statute setting out the circumstances under which an abortion was permitted contained one section regulating abortions occurring before twenty weeks gestational age, see Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-302(2) (1995), and one section regulating abortions after twenty weeks gestational age, see id. § 302(3). The district court had declared section 302(2) unconstitutional, see Jane L. v. Bangerter, 809 F.Supp. 865, 870 (D.Utah 1992) (Jane L. III), and defendants [1114]*1114did not challenge that ruling. Plaintiffs argued on appeal that section 302(3) was not severable from section 302(2), and that section 302(3) was therefore invalid along with section 302(2). In the alternative, plaintiffs contended that if section 302(3) were severa-ble, it was nonetheless unconstitutional on its face. We determined as a matter of Utah law that the provisions were not sever-able and invalidated section 302(3) on that basis. See Jane L. IV, 61 F.3d at 1496-99. Accordingly, we did not address the constitutionality of section 302(3) standing alone. See id. at 1497 n. 3.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari and limited its review to our holding that the two provisions of the Utah statute were not sev-erable. The Court summarily reversed the judgment as to that issue, and remanded the case to us for further proceedings. See Leavitt v. Jane L., — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 2068, 135 L.Ed.2d 443 (1996) (per curiam). The only issue before us on remand is the one we did not previously reach:1 the constitutionality of Utah’s attempt to regulate abortions after twenty weeks gestational age as set out in section 302(3).2

Section 302(3) provides: “After 20 weeks gestational age, measured from the date of conception, an abortion may be performed only for those purposes and circumstances described in Subsections 2(a), (d), and (e).” Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-302(3).3 Under the listed subsections, an abortion is allowed when necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life, id. § 302(2)(a), to prevent grave damage to the pregnant woman’s health, id. § 302(2)(d), or to prevent the birth of a child with grave defects, id. § 302(2)(e). The parties agree that section 302(3) embodies a legislative judgment equating viability with twenty weeks gestational age as measured from conception, and on that basis restricts the availability of abortion after twenty weeks to three narrow circumstances. The district court held that section 302(3) did not constitute an undue burden on a woman’s right to choose under Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S.Ct. 2791, 120 L.Ed.2d 674 (1992), because the record before the court contained no evidence that nontherapeutic abortions after twenty weeks had ever been performed in Utah, or that any woman in Utah wants or has ever attempted to obtain an abortion that late in her pregnancy. Plaintiffs contend on appeal that, by establishing a date of viability, the statute stands in direct conflict with controlling Supreme Court precedent, and that the statute imposes an undue burden prohibited by Casey. Defendants assert to the contrary that under Casey a state may establish a presumption of viability.

In Casey, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the central holding of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), that

viability marks the earliest point at which the State’s interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions. The soundness or unsoundness of that constitutional judgment in no sense turns on whether viability occurs at approximately 28 weeks, as was usual at the time of Roe, at 23 to 24 weeks, as it sometimes does today, or at some moment even slightly earlier in pregnancy, as it may if fetal respiratory capacity can somehow be enhanced in the future. Whenever it may occur, the attainment of viability may continue to serve as the critical fact, just as it [1115]*1115has done since Roe was decided; which is to say that no change in Roe’s factual underpinning has left its central holding obsolete, and none supports an argument for overruling it.

Casey, 505 U.S. at 860, 112 S.Ct. at 2811-12.

After the decision in Roe, the Supreme Court addressed the critical definition of viability in a series of cases. In Planned Parenthood v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 96 S.Ct. 2831, 49 L.Ed.2d 788 (1976), the Court stated it had “recognized in Roe that viability was a matter of medical judgment, skill, and technical ability, and we preserved the flexibility of the term.” Id. at 64, 96 S.Ct. at 2838-39. Accordingly, the Court held:

[I]t is not the proper function of the legislature or the courts to place viability, which essentially is a medical concept, at a specific point in the gestation period. The time when viability is achieved may vary with each pregnancy, and the determination of whether a particular fetus is viable is, and must be, a matter for the judgment of the responsible attending physician.

Id.

In Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 99 S.Ct. 675, 58 L.Ed.2d 596 (1979), the Court reviewed its holdings in Roe, its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 93 S.Ct. 739, 35 L.Ed.2d 201 (1973), and Danforth, and pointed out that those cases had “stressed viability, [and] declared its determination to be a matter for medical judgment.” 439 U.S. at 388, 99 S.Ct. at 682.

We reaffirm these principles. Viability is reached when, in the judgment of the attending physician on the particular facts of the case before him, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus’ sustained survival outside the womb, with or without artificial support. Because this point may differ with each pregnancy, neither the legislature nor the courts may proclaim one of the elements entering into the ascertainment of viability — be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor— as the determinant of when the State has a compelling interest in the life or health of the fetus. Viability is the critical'point. And we have recognized no attempt to stretch the point of viability one way or the other.

Id. at 388-89, 99 S.Ct. at 682. Finally, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Servs., 492 U.S. 490, 109 S.Ct. 3040, 106 L.Ed.2d 410 (1989), the Court reiterated its holdings in Danforth

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
102 F.3d 1112, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 33375, 1996 WL 732494, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jane-l-v-bangerter-ca10-1996.