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Roe vs Wade

Facts

Roe (P), a pregnant single woman, brought a class action suit challenging theconstitutionality of the Texas abortion laws. These laws made it a crime to obtain or

attempt an abortion except on medical advice to save the life of the mother.

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit included Hallford, a doctor who faced criminalprosecution for violating the state abortion laws; and the Does, a married couplewith no children, who sought an injunction against enforcement of the laws on thegrounds that they were unconstitutional. The defendant was county District AttorneyWade (D).

A three-judge District Court panel tried the cases together and held that Roe andHallford had standing to sue and presented justiciable controversies, and that

declaratory relief was warranted. The court also ruled however that injunctive reliefwas not warranted and that the Does complaint was not justiciable.

Roe and Hallford won their lawsuits at trial. The district court held that the Texasabortion statutes were void as vague and for overbroadly infringing the Ninth andFourteenth Amendment rights of the plaintiffs. The Does lost, however, because thedistrict court ruled that injunctive relief against enforcement of the laws was notwarranted.

The Does appealed directly to the Supreme Court of the United States and Wade

cross-appealed the district courts judgment in favor of Roe and Hallford.

Issues

1. Do abortion laws that criminalize all abortions, except those required onmedical advice to save the life of the mother, violate the Constitution of theUnited States?

2. Does the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the UnitedStates Constitution protect the right to privacy, including the right to obtain anabortion?

3. Are there any circumstances where a state may enact laws prohibitingabortion?

4. Did the fact that Roes pregnancy had already terminated naturally before thiscase was decided by the Supreme Court render her lawsuit moot?

5. Was the district court correct in denying injunctive relief?

Holding and Rule (Blackmun)

1. Yes. State criminal abortion laws that except from criminality only life-savingprocedures on the mothers behalf, and that do not take into consideration

the stage of pregnancy and other interests, are unconstitutional for violatingthe Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

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2. Yes. The Due Process Clause protects the right to privacy, including awomans right to terminate her pregnancy, against state action.

3. Yes. Though a state cannot completely deny a woman the right to terminateher pregnancy, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnantwomans health and the potentiality of human life at various stages of

pregnancy.4. No. The natural termination of Roes pregnancy did not render her suit moot.

5. Yes. The district court was correct in denying injunctive relief.

The Court held that, in regard to abortions during the first trimester, the decisionmust be left to the judgment of the pregnant womans doctor. In regard to secondtrimester pregnancies, states may promote their interests in the mothers health byregulating abortion procedures related to the health of the mother. Regarding thirdtrimester pregnancies, states may promote their interests in the potentiality ofhuman life by regulating or even prohibiting abortion, except when necessary to

preserve the life or health of the mother.

The Supreme Court held that litigation involving pregnancy, which is capable ofrepetition, yet evading review, is an exception to the general rule that an actualcontroversy must exist at each stage of judicial review, and not merely when theaction is initiated.

The Court held that while 28 U.S.C. 1253 does not authorize a party seeking onlydeclaratory relief to appeal directly to the Supreme Court, review is not foreclosedwhen the case is brought on appeal from specific denial of injunctive relief and the

arguments on the issues of both injunctive and declaratory relief are necessarilyidentical.

The Does complaint seeking injunctive relief was based on contingencies whichmight or might not occur and was therefore too speculative to present an actualcase or controversy. It was unnecessary for the Court to decide Hallfords case forinjunctive relief because once the Court found the laws unconstitutional, the Texasauthorities were prohibited from enforcing them.

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965)

Griswold v. Connecticut

Posted on November 28, 2012 | Constitutional Law | Tags: Constitutional Law Case Brief

FACTS

In 1879 the state of Connecticut passed a law that prohibited any drug, medicinalarticle or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception. The Plainti"in1965 was the director of Planned Parenthood in the state and challenged the lawon constitutional grounds when they were convicted of instructing and advising

married couples to use birth control.

The law had previously rarely been enforcedand was all but ignored. Plainti"was convicted of a portion of this law whichmade it illegal to counsel married couples regarding contraception.

http://www.casebriefsummary.com/tag/constitutional-law-case-brief/http://www.casebriefsummary.com/category/constitutional-law/http://www.casebriefsummary.com/griswold-v-connecticut/

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ISSUE

Whether there is a constitutional right to privacy; and if so, under what article doesit exist?

HOLDING/ANALYSIS

Yes, there is a right to privacy that exists in the aggregation of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 9thand 14th amendments. When viewed collectively, these constitutional rightscreate a zone of constitutional authority that demonstrates the right to individualprivacy is inherent. The state cannot violate this right because it is a right thatpredates the constitution itself. Moreover, the first amendment itself has apenumbra or an implication that privacy is protected in particular.

The court also held that the law is not narrowly tailored to meet its stated goals orits legitimate governmental interest. $

Holding: 72 decision invalidating a Connecticut law, as applied to marriedcouples, which prohibited the use of contraceptives.$$

Majority:Douglas, Goldberg, Brennan, White, Harlan, Clark, Warren. InGriswold, the Supreme Court explicitly recognized the constitutional right ofmarital privacy, thereby laying the foundation for subsequent recognition ofreproductive privacy. By a vote of 7-2, the Supreme Court invalidated aConnecticut statute that prohibited the use of contraceptives as it applied to

married persons, noting that the law operates directly on an intimate relation ofhusband and wife and their physician's role in one aspect of that relation. $$

In extending constitutional protection to marital privacy, the Court relied on otherdecisions recognizing rights not explicitly mentioned in the constitution. JusticeWilliam O. Douglas, writing for the majority, wrote that specific guarantees in theBill of Rights have penumbras, formed by the emanations from those guaranteesthat give them life and substance and that these (v)arious guarantees createzones of privacy. Finding that the ban on contraceptives by married personsconcerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several

fundamental constitutional guarantees, the majority concluded that the intrusionpermitted by the law was repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding themarriage relationship. $