Schulman v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp.

75 Misc. 2d 150, 346 N.Y.S.2d 920, 1973 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1835
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedJune 12, 1973
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 75 Misc. 2d 150 (Schulman v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schulman v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp., 75 Misc. 2d 150, 346 N.Y.S.2d 920, 1973 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1835 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1973).

Opinion

Samuel A. Spiegel, J.

This article 78 proceeding was determined by judgment of October 6, 1972 (Matter of Schulman v. New York City Health and Hosps. Corp., 70 Misc 2d 1093) favorable to petitioners. They sought judgment annulling the requirement that a fetal death certificate shall include the name and address of the aborting patient. The requirement was found to be unreasonable. That determination was based on the proposition that (p. 1095) ‘ The fundamental right of woman to choose to bear children is concomitant with her right of privacy in matters related to marriage, family and sex. (People v. Belous, 71 Cal. 2d 954; Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479).” and (p. 1096) “ right to conceal her identity * , * her fundamental right of privacy, iso as to prevent stigmatizing this abortion patient.” Compliance with the requirement, it was ruled (p. 1096), is most discriminatory as to both married and single women and serves no compelling public purpose. It denies to them the equal protection of the laws as to their right to privacy.”

An appeal was taken from the judgment. There was reversal and remand, the Appellate Division stating (41 A D 2d 714): [151]*151‘ This action is taken in fairness to all parties and in light of judicial decisions handed down since the determination herein, most notably Roe v. Wade (410 U. S. 113) and Roe v. Bolton (410 U. S. 179).”

In Eisenstadt v. Baird (405 U. S. 438, 453) the United States Supreme Court stated: “If the right of privacy means anything, it is 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.” This court remains of the opinion that disclosure of the patient’s name is in no manner supportive of the State’s compelling interests while it seriously diminishes the right of privacy.

The right of privacy was examined with great care and precision in Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U. S. 479, 484, 485). There the United States Supreme Court declared:

“ specific guarantees in the Bill of Bights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. * * *
“We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of ‘ privacy and repose ’.**'*
“ The present ease, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. And it concerns a law which, in forbidding the use of contraceptives rather than regulating their manufacture or sale, seeks to achieve its goals by means of having a maximum destructive impact upon that relationship. Such a law cannot stand in light of the familiar principle, so often applied by this Court, that a ‘ governmental purpose to control or prevent activities constitutionally subject to state regulation may not be achieved by means which sweep unnecessarily broadly and thereby invade the area of protected freedoms.’ NAACP v. Alabama, 377 U. S. 288, 307. Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives? ”

So, too, in this case there has been a grant of legislative sanction reflecting such mores in respect of the woman’s right to abortion subject to the State’s compelling interests. The spirit and essence of the sanction would be lost by a disclosure after the fact. The disclosure contributes nothing to regulations already effectuated in the State’s interests before the time for filing of the fetal certificate.

The regulations and requirements reflecting the State’s compelling interests have to do with protecting the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life. Those [152]*152interests grow and become compelling at various stages of the woman’s approach to term. The concerns are met by regulating the qualifications of the person performing the abortion, the place at which it is done and the cautions provided for safety.

Thus, in Roe v. Wade (410 U. S. 113, 129, 155, 163, 164, supra), the United States Supreme Court declared:

“ The principal thrust of appellant’s attack on the Texas statutes is that they improperly invade a right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Appellant would discover this right in the concept of personal ‘ liberty ’ embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Bights or its penum*? bras, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972); id., at 460 White, J., concurring in result); or among those rights reserved to the people by the Ninth Amendment, Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S., at 486 (Goldberg, J., concurring.) * * *
“ Although the results are divided, most of these courts have agreed that the right of privacy, however based, is broad enough to cover the abortion decision; that the right, nonetheless, is not absolute and is subject to some limitations; and that at some point the state interests as to protection of health, medical standards, and prenatal life, become dominant. We agree with this approach. * * *
“ With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in the health of the mother, the 1 compelling ’ point, in the light of present medical knowledge, is at approximately the end of the first trimester. This is so because of the now-established medical fact, referred to above at 149, that until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal childbirth. It follows that, from and after this point, a State may regulate the abortion procedure to the extent that the regulation reasonably relates to the preservation and protection of maternal health. Examples of permissible state regulation in this area are requirements as to the qualifications of the person who is to perform the abortion; as to the licensure of that person; as to the facility in which the procedure is to be performed, that is, whether it must be a hospital or may.be a clinic or some other place of less-than-hospital status; as to the licensing of the facility; and the like. * * *
“With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the ‘ compelling ’ point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of. meaningful life outside the mother’s womb.

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Related

State v. Jacobus
75 Misc. 2d 840 (New York Supreme Court, 1973)

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Bluebook (online)
75 Misc. 2d 150, 346 N.Y.S.2d 920, 1973 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1835, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schulman-v-new-york-city-health-hospitals-corp-nysupct-1973.