Planned Parenthood v. Casey

Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 22, 1992 Decided June 29, 1992
Full case name	Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, et al. v. Robert P. Casey, et al.
Citations	505 U.S. 833 (more) 112 S. Ct. 2791; 120 L. Ed. 2d 674; 1992 U.S. LEXIS 4751; 60 U.S.L.W. 4795; 92 Daily Journal DAR 8982; 6 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 663
Argument	Oral argument
Opinion announcement	Opinion announcement
Case history
Prior	Judgment and injunction for plaintiffs, 686 F. Supp. 1089 (E.D. Pa. 1988); injunction clarified, 736 F. Supp. 633 (E.D. Pa. 1990); judgment and injunction granted for plaintiffs, 744 F. Supp. 1323 (E.D. Pa. 1990) (regarding 1988 amendments to 1982 Act); affirmed in part and reversed in part, 947 F. 2d 682 (3d Cir. 1991); certiorari granted, 502 U.S. 1056 (1992)
Subsequent	Remanded, 978 F.2d 74 (3d Cir. 1992); motion to disqualify judge denied, 812 F. Supp. 541 (E.D. Pa. 1993); record reopened and injunctions continued, 822 F. Supp. 227 (E.D. Pa. 1993); reversed and remanded, 14 F.3d 848 (3d Cir. 1994); stay denied, 510 U.S. 1309 (1994); attorney fees and costs awarded to plaintiffs, 869 F. Supp. 1190 (E.D. Pa. 1994); affirmed, 60 F.3d 816 (3d Cir. 1995)
Holding
1. Consideration of the fundamental constitutional question resolved by Roe v. Wade, principles of institutional integrity, and the rule of stare decisis require that Roe’s essential holding be reaffirmed. 2. The Pennsylvania law that required spousal awareness prior to obtaining an abortion was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because it created an undue burden on married women seeking an abortion. 3. Requirements for parental consent, informed consent, and 24-hour waiting period were constitutionally valid regulations. Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices Byron White · Harry Blackmun John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas
Case opinions
Majority	O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter (Parts I, II, III, V-A, V-C, and VI), joined by Blackmun and Stevens
Plurality	O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter (Part V-E), joined by Stevens
Plurality	O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter (Parts IV, V-B, and V-D)
Concur/dissent	Stevens
Concur/dissent	Blackmun
Concur/dissent	Rehnquist, joined by White, Scalia, and Thomas
Concur/dissent	Scalia, joined by Rehnquist, White, and Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. §§ 3203, 3205–09, 3214 (Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982)
Overruled by
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022)
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Roe v. Wade (1973) (in part), City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health (1983), Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (1986)

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court upheld the right to have an abortion as established by the "essential holding" of Roe v. Wade (1973) and issued as its "key judgment" the restoration of the undue burden standard when evaluating state-imposed restrictions on that right.^[1] Both the essential holding of Roe and the key judgment of Casey were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022, with its landmark decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.^[2]

The case arose from a challenge to five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982; among the provisions were requirements for a waiting period, spousal notice, and (for minors) parental consent prior to undergoing an abortion procedure. In a plurality opinion jointly written by associate justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter, the Supreme Court upheld the "essential holding" of Roe, which was that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution protected a woman's right to have an abortion prior to fetal viability.^[3]

The Court overturned the Roe trimester framework in favor of a viability analysis, thereby allowing states to implement abortion restrictions that apply during the first trimester of pregnancy. In its "key judgment," the Court overturned Roe's strict scrutiny standard of review of a state's abortion restrictions with the undue burden standard, under which abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional when they were enacted for "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." Applying this new standard of review, the Court upheld four provisions of the Pennsylvania law, but invalidated the requirement of spousal notification. Four justices wrote or joined opinions arguing that Roe v. Wade should have been struck down, while two justices wrote opinions favoring the preservation of the higher standard of review for abortion restrictions.