Case may lay the foundation to chip away at Roe v. Wade

Washington, D.C. – Today, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the United States Supreme Court in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England ruled that courts may not invalidate abortion laws in their entirety when a narrower ruling is possible. Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief in the New Hampshire parental notification case.

The lower courts had invalidated the entire law based on an assumption that the law did not provide an exception to parental notification when, in “some small percentage of cases, pregnant minors, like adult women, need immediate abortions to avert serious and often irreversible damage to their health.” Today’s decision reverses the lower courts. The High Court sent the case back to the trial court to “[e]ither enter an injunction prohibiting unconstitutional applications or a holding that consistency with legislative intent requires invalidating the statute in toto . . . . "

The Court admitted that in 2000 it struck Nebraska’s partial birth abortion statute in its entirety because it lacked a health exception. Surprisingly, the Court seemed to acknowledge that had the parties in Stenberg v. Carhart asked for a narrower ruling, it could have upheld part of the law while striking down only the offending sections. The implications of today’s ruling mean that lower courts may not strike down abortion laws in their entirety when a narrower ruling is possible. Although the Court did not address whether it would permit pre-enforcement challenges to abortion laws, the decision clearly will make striking down abortion legislation in its entirety much more difficult.

While the Court began its decision by stating that it was not “revisiting our abortion precedents today,” the Court clearly stated that parental involvement laws are permissible.

Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel, commented: “Although the Court’s ruling appears to be subtle, the implications of the case mean that it will be far more difficult for courts to strike down abortion legislation in its entirety when a narrow ruling is permissible. Courts have frustrated legislators by striking down abortion laws when only a narrow portion of the law could have been striken. Although the time will come when the High Court will revisit its abortion precedents, the Court’s decision is a major victory for future abortion legislation. Untold numbers of babies have lost their lives as a result of courts broadly striking down laws based upon rare applications to unusual circumstances. In the future, most of these laws will be allowed to operate to protect life in 99% of the cases, while the 1% of questionable applications will be stricken. I believe this case lays the foundation to chip away at Roe v. Wade.”