142
Per Curiam
"modif[ying]" § 302(2), and concluded that, "[w]ith the nullification of the abortion ban in section 302(2), the statute was gutted, and section 302(3) was left purposeless without an abortion ban to modify." 61 F. 3d, at 1498. But as examination of the provisions makes apparent, see n. 1, supra, § 302(3) cannot possibly be said to "modify" § 302(2) in the sense of being an adjunct to it, as an adjective "modifies" a noun. Rather, it can be said to "modify" § 302(2) only in the sense of altering its disposition—permitting, for post-20-week abortions, some but not all of the justifications allowed (for earlier-term abortions) by § 302(2). It is impossible to see how this could lead to the conclusion that § 302(3) is left "purposeless" when § 302(2) is declared inoperative. Of course § 302(3) does incorporate by reference permissible justifications for abortion set forth in § 302(2), instead of repeating them verbatim, but this drafting device can hardly be thought to establish such "interdependence" that § 302(3) becomes "purposeless" when § 302(2) is unenforceable. To the contrary, § 302(3) sets out in straightforward and self-operative fashion the circumstances under which an abortion may be performed "[a]fter 20 weeks gestational age."
But even if the Court of Appeals were correct in treating § 317 like an ordinary saving clause; even if it were right in believing that there existed the "interrelationship" between §§ 302(2) and 302(3) that would permit an ordinary saving clause to be disregarded; and even if it had not invented the notion of "structural-substantive" dichotomy; the reasoning by which it concluded that the "substantive" intent of the Utah Legislature was to forgo all regulation of abortion unless it could obtain total regulation is flawed. The court reasoned that, because the intent of the 1991 amendments was "to prohibit all abortions, regardless of when they occur during the pregnancy, except in the few specified circumstances," 61 F. 3d, at 1497, and because §§ 302(2) and 302(3) "operated as a unified expression of [that] intent," ibid., for
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