914
OCTOBER TERM, 1999
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit
No. 99-830. Argued April 25, 2000—Decided June 28, 2000
The Constitution offers basic protection to a woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113; Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833. Before fetal viability, a woman has a right to terminate her pregnancy, id., at 870 (plurality opinion), and a state law is unconstitutional if it imposes on the woman's decision an "undue burden," i. e., if it has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the woman's path, id., at 877. Postviability, the State, in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life, may regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where "necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the [mother's] life or health." E. g., id., at 879. The Nebraska law at issue prohibits any "partial birth abortion" unless that procedure is necessary to save the mother's life. It defines "partial birth abortion" as a procedure in which the doctor "partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the . . . child," and defines the latter phrase to mean "intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the [abortionist] knows will kill the . . . child and does kill the . . . child." Violation of the law is a felony, and it provides for the automatic revocation of a convicted doctor's state license to practice medicine. Respondent Carhart, a Nebraska physician who performs abortions in a clinical setting, brought this suit seeking a declaration that the statute violates the Federal Constitution. The District Court held the statute unconstitutional. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.
Held: Nebraska's statute criminalizing the performance of "partial birth abortion[s]" violates the Federal Constitution, as interpreted in Casey and Roe. Pp. 922-946.
(a) Because the statute seeks to ban one abortion method, the Court discusses several different abortion procedures, as described in the evidence below and the medical literature. During a pregnancy's second trimester (12 to 24 weeks), the most common abortion procedure is "dilation and evacuation" (D&E), which involves dilation of the cervix, removal of at least some fetal tissue using nonvacuum surgical instruments, and (after the 15th week) the potential need for instrumental
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