Introduction
The case of Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124 (2007) is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is about the so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, a federal law banning a certain form of abortion called a “partial-birth abortion.” The medical term for it is “intact dilation and extraction”, which is a type of late termination of pregnancy, where the fetus is removed feet-first and then its head collapsed. The statute, however, uses the term “partial-birth abortion” to refer to any type of abortion where the fetus is extracted from the mother’s body past the navel and then terminated.
The Act was protested against by pro-choice groups, due to an absence of exemption in case a pregnant woman’s health is at risk and the procedure is needed to help her. This is one of the reasons why the Act was found unconstitutional by three district courts and three courts of appeals, after which Attorney General Gonzales petitioned the Supreme Court to review the decision. The question presented in Gonzales v. Carhart is whether the Act violates the right to personal liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment because it lacks the aforementioned exemption, whether it imposes an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion, and whether it should be found unconstitutional for those reasons.
Case analysis
The Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is to be considered constitutional, upholding the law in question and reversing the previous decisions by the courts of appeals. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissenting opinion, which took quite a heavy stand on the majority opinion, ruling it as infringing on women’s rights and totally ignoring Supreme Court abortion precedent.
The decision in this case is heavily dependent on the precedent set by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). This is because one of the main challenges to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act had to do with the main principle established in Casey, the undue burden standard. In short, the undue burden standard is a constitutional test used in this context to analyze restrictions on the right to have an abortion. A restriction on abortion rights poses an undue burden when it places a considerable obstacle in the path of the woman seeking an abortion. In Gonzales, banning only a certain form of abortion, the “partial-birth abortion”, was deemed in the majority opinion as something that does not pose an undue burden on the woman. This was justified partly by explaining that the woman still has other options and other types of abortion to turn to.
Another important problem brought forward by the respondents was the absence of an exemption to preserve the health of the mother. The Supreme Court, however, found that there is no consensus in the medical community on whether the procedure is ever necessary to protect the woman’s health. In the past, the Supreme Court has made decisions that allow legislation in areas where there is medical uncertainty, and this is the Court’s reasoning behind the decision to uphold the Act even without this exemption. However, part of the so-called essential holding of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), is that the State can only restrict abortion rights in later stages of pregnancy when there is also an exception for pregnancies where the mother is in danger. Keeping in mind the doctrine of stare decisis, the failure to provide such an exception in Gonzales seems unjust, which is exactly what Justice Ginsburg pointed out in her dissenting opinion, as well.
Handling of Gonzales v. Carhart by the litigants in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Gonzales is one of the cases presented in the Table of Authorities of both the Petitioner and the Respondent in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, but especially the Petitioner’s side uses the case to their advantage and refers to it multiple times. This is because the Petitioner is trying to defend the strict Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, the Gestational Age Act, which is what Dobbs is all about.
Gonzales is the first case to, in a way, go against previous precedent and to go from supporting reproductive rights to this time restricting them. It could provide Dobbs an example of a case in which these kinds of restrictions were able to be made. I think this is the direction in which the Petitioner in Dobbs is trying to take the case. By using Gonzales as an example, they can show that the Court has previously been willing to limit certain aspects of abortion, so perhaps it could be possible that they go a step further and allow even greater restrictions on reproductive rights.
Conclusions
The case in question is a very interesting one, as it is the first in a long line of decisions after the ground-breaking Roe v. Wade to impose restrictions on abortion rights, without an exception protecting the woman’s health. The decision in Gonzales is interpreted to be the start of a shift toward a more restrictive approach to abortion rights in the Supreme Court.
This shift is essentially made possible not necessarily by a change in public opinion or any justice’s opinion, but rather by a change in the make-up of the Court; Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was succeeded by Justice Samuel Alito just weeks before the petition for a writ of certiorari was granted. Justice Alito is generally thought to be one of the most conservative justices on the Court, while Justice O’Connor is thought to have represented more moderately conservative views, and she cast the swing vote to the more liberal side in many important cases. It will be interesting to see whether Dobbs will be able to further this shift with even more radical restrictions on reproductive rights.
V.N.B.A