Gonzales v. Carhart Totally Explained

Everything about Gonzales V Carhart totally explained

Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. ___ (2007), is a United States Supreme Court case which upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. The case reached the high court after U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appealed a ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in favor of LeRoy Carhart that struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Also before the Supreme Court was the consolidated appeal of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which had struck down the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
The Supreme Court's decision, handed down on April 18, 2007, upheld the federal ban and held that it didn't impose an undue burden on the due process right of women to obtain an abortion, "under precedents we here assume to be controlling," such as the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This case distinguished but didn't reverse Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), in which the Court dealt with similar issues.

History of case

The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was signed into law by President Bush on November 5, 2003, and was immediately challenged. Three different U.S. district courts, the Northern District of California, the Southern District of New York, and the District of Nebraska declared the law unconstitutional. Federal District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of California ruled it unconstitutional on June 1, 2004 in Planned Parenthood v. Ashcroft. New York District Judge Richard C. Casey also found the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional, as did U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Nebraska.
The federal government appealed the district court rulings, first bringing Carhart v. Gonzales before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The panel unanimously upheld the ruling of the Nebraska court on July 8, 2005. Finding that the government offered no "new evidence which would serve to distinguish this record from the record reviewed by the Supreme Court in Stenberg," they held that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is unconstitutional because it lacks an exception for the health of the woman.
Attorney General Gonzales petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Eighth Circuit decision on September 25, 2005. Meanwhile, the Ninth Circuit also found the law unconstitutional, as did the Second Circuit (with a dissent), issuing their opinions on January 31, 2006. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the Carhart case on February 21, 2006, and agreed to hear the companion Planned Parenthood case on June 19, 2006.

Oral arguments

Oral arguments in this case (as well as its companion case) occurred on November 8, 2006. U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, presented arguments for the federal government and Priscilla Smith presented arguments for Dr. Carhart et al. U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement also presented arguments for the federal government in the companion case of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood. Eve Gartner presented arguments for Planned Parenthood. The Supreme Court has made available audio of the oral arguments, in both Carhart and Planned Parenthood.

Decision

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the Court that the respondents had failed to show that Congress lacked power to ban this abortion procedure. Chief Justice John Roberts along with Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia agreed with the Court's judgment, and they also joined Kennedy's opinion.
   The Court left the door open for as-applied challenges, citing its recent precedent in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of New England. According to Washington Post reporter Benjamin Wittes, "The Court majority, following the path it sketched out last year in the New Hampshire case, decided to let the law stand as a facial matter and let the parties fight later about what, if any, applications need to be blocked."
   The Court decided to "assume ... for the purposes of this opinion" the principles of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The Court then proceeded to apply those "principles accepted as controlling here."
   The Court said that the lower courts had repudiated a central premise of Casey — that the state has an interest in preserving fetal life — and the Court held that the ban was narrowly tailored to address this interest. Relying deferentially on Congress's findings that this intact dilation and extraction procedure is never needed to protect the health of a pregnant woman, Kennedy wrote that a health exception was therefore unnecessary. And, where medical testimony disputed Congress's findings, Congress is still entitled to regulate in an area where the medical community hasn't reached a "consensus."

Dissent

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented, joined by justices David Souter, John Paul Stevens, and Stephen Breyer, contending that the ruling was an "alarming" one that ignored Supreme Court abortion precedent. Justice Ginsburg's dissent was the only opinion in this case that mentioned the word "privacy". Justice Ginsburg, referring in particular to Planned Parenthood v. Casey, sought to ground the Court's abortion jurisprudence based on concepts of personal autonomy and equal citizenship rather than the Court's previous privacy approach: "Thus, legal challenges to undue restrictions on abortion procedures don't seek to vindicate some generalized notion of privacy; rather, they center on a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course, and thus to enjoy equal citizenship stature." Justice Kennedy's opinion in Carhart didn't touch upon the question of whether the Court's prior decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were valid. Dissenting Justice Ginsburg characterized this aspect of the Court's opinion as follows: "Casey's principles, confirming the continuing vitality of ‘the essential holding of Roe,’ are merely ‘assume[d]’ for the moment ... rather than ‘retained’ or ‘reaffirmed.’"

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