Cite as: 518 U. S. 137 (1996)
Per Curiam
the court to separate § 302(2) from § 302(3) based on the unconstitutionality of the former would "clearly undermin[e] the legislative purpose to ban most abortions," id., at 1498.4
This mode of analysis, if carried out in every case, would operate to defeat every claim of severability. Every legislature that adopts, in a single enactment, provision A plus provision B intends (A+B); and that enactment, which reads (A+B), is invariably a "unified expression of that intent," so that taking away A from (A+B), leaving only B, will invariably "clearly undermine the legislative purpose" to enact (A+B). But the fallacy in applying this reasoning to the severability question is that it is not the severing that will take away A from (A+B) and thus foil the legislature's intent; it is the invalidation of A (in this case, because of its unconstitutionality) which does so—an invalidation that occurs whether or not the two provisions are severed. The relevant question, in other words, is not whether the legislature would prefer (A+B) to B, because by reason of the invalidation of A that choice is no longer available. The relevant question is whether the legislature would prefer not to have B if it could not have A as well. Here, the Court of Appeals in effect said yes. It determined that a legislature bent
4 The Court of Appeals also adverted to Utah Code Ann. § 76-7-317.2 (1995), which it interpreted as "making an exception to the general severability clause specifically for section 302." Jane L. v. Bangerter, 61 F. 3d, at 1499. Section 317.2 does nothing of the sort. It provides, simply, that "[i]f Section 76-7-302 as amended by Senate Bill 23, 1991 Annual General Session, is ever held to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, Section 76-7-302, as enacted by Chapter 33, Laws of Utah 1974, is reenacted and immediately effective." This provision does not speak to severability, but to the consequence of invalidation, presumably total invalidation. (For if the invalidation of § 302(2) alone triggered § 317.2, then all of § 302 would be replaced by the pre-existing, 1974 version. But the Court of Appeals did not decree § 302(1) as inoperative, nor did respondents seek that result.) Respondents make no effort to defend the ruling below on the basis of § 317.2.
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