978
Opinion of Rehnquist, C. J.
and irreversible impairment of major bodily function." § 3203.
Petitioners argued before the District Court that the statutory definition was inadequate because it did not cover three serious conditions that pregnant women can suffer— preeclampsia, inevitable abortion, and prematurely ruptured membrane. The District Court agreed with petitioners that the medical emergency exception was inadequate, but the Court of Appeals reversed this holding. In construing the medical emergency provision, the Court of Appeals first observed that all three conditions do indeed present the risk of serious injury or death when an abortion is not performed, and noted that the medical profession's uniformly prescribed treatment for each of the three conditions is an immediate abortion. See 947 F. 2d, at 700-701. Finding that "[t]he Pennsylvania legislature did not choose the wording of its medical emergency exception in a vacuum," the court read the exception as intended "to assure that compliance with its abortion regulations would not in any way pose a significant threat to the life or health of a woman." Id., at 701. It thus concluded that the exception encompassed each of the three dangerous conditions pointed to by petitioners.
We observe that Pennsylvania's present definition of medical emergency is almost an exact copy of that State's definition at the time of this Court's ruling in Thornburgh, one which the Court made reference to with apparent approval. 476 U. S., at 771 ("It is clear that the Pennsylvania Legislature knows how to provide a medical-emergency exception when it chooses to do so").3 We find that the interpretation
3 The definition in use at that time provided as follows: " 'Medical emergency.' That condition which, on the basis of the physician's best clinical judgment, so complicates a pregnancy as to necessitate the immediate abortion of same to avert the death of the mother or for which a 24-hour delay will create grave peril of immediate and irreversible loss of major bodily function." Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 18, § 3203 (Purdon 1983).
Page: Index Previous 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007