concluding that abortion providers “against whom [abortion regulations] directly operate” but who had not “been prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution, for violation of the State’s abortion statutes[,] ... should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief’ on their constitutional claims
How later courts described this case
- concluding that abortion providers “against whom [abortion regulations] directly operate” but who had not “been prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution, for violation of the State’s abortion statutes[,] ... should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief’ on their constitutional claims
- finding physicians challenging an abortion statute had standing to do so “despite the fact that the record does not disclose that any one of them has been prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution.... They should not be required to await and undergo a criminal prosecution as the sole means of seeking relief.”
- holding that physicians, asserting the rights of their patients, have standing to challenge the constitutionality of a criminal abortion statute even though “the record does not disclose that any one of them has been prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution, for violation of the State’s abortion statutes”
- concluding that the court “need not pass upon the status of these additional appellants in this suit, for the issues are sufficiently and adequately presented by Doe and the physician-appellants, and nothing is gained or lost by the presence or absence of the [others]”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Abrogated on other grounds by Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022)
410 U.S. 179, 189 (1973), abrogated on other grounds by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S. 215
Distinguished
Distinguished by San Diego County Gun Rights Committee v. Reno, 98 F.3d 1121 (1996)
In Rincon Band, we distinguished Bolton on two grounds.
The opinion
Mr. Chief Justice Burger,
concurring *
I agree that, under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, the abortion statutes of Georgia and Texas impermissibly limit the performance of abortions necessary to protect the health of pregnant women, using *208 the term health in its broadest medical context. See United States v. Vuitch, 402 U. S. 62, 71-72 (1971). I am somewhat troubled that the Court has taken notice of various scientific and medical data in reaching its conclusion; however, I do not believe that the Court has exceeded the scope of judicial notice accepted in other contexts.
In oral argument, counsel for the State of Texas informed the Court that early abortion procedures were routinely permitted in certain exceptional cases, such as nonconsensual pregnancies resulting from rape and incest. In the face of a rigid and narrow statute, such as that of Texas, no one in these circumstances should be placed in a posture of dependence on a prosecu-torial policy or prosecutorial discretion. Of course, States must have broad power, within the limits indicated in the opinions, to regulate the subject of abortions, but where the consequences of state intervention are so severe, uncertainty must be avoided as much as possible. Tor my part, I would be inclined to allow a State to require the certification of two physicians to support an abortion, but the Court holds otherwise. I do not believe that such a procedure is unduly burdensome, as are the complex steps of the Georgia statute, which require as many as six doctors and the use of a hospital certified by the JCAH.
I do not read the Court’s holdings today as having the sweeping consequences attributed to them by the dissenting Justices; the dissenting views discount the reality that the vast majority of physicians observe the standards of their profession, and act only on the basis of carefully deliberated medical judgments relating to life and health. Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand.
[This opinion applies also to No. 70-18, Roe v. Wade, ante, p. 113.]