OnTheIssuesLogo

Candidate Notes on 92-1

 


92-1 on Apr 22, 1992

    At issue are five provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982:
  1. requiring a 24-hour “informed consent” waiting period before the abortion is performed;
  2. mandating the consent of one parent for a minor to obtain an abortion, with a judicial bypass procedure;
  3. requiring notification of the husband;
  4. defining a “medical emergency” that will excuse compliance with the foregoing requirements;
  5. imposing reporting requirements on facilities providing abortion services.

Held:

(Written by O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter; joined in part by Stevens and Blackmun)
Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet, 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade (1973), that definition of liberty is still questioned.
    We are led to conclude this: the essential holding of Roe v. Wade should be retained and once again reaffirmed, in three parts:

  1. The right of the woman to choose to have an abortion before viability.
  2. The State may restrict abortions after fetal viability if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies which endanger the woman’s health.
  3. The State has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child.

Dissent:

(Rehnquist, joined in part by White, Scalia, and Thomas)
The joint opinion, following its newly minted variation on stare decisis, retains the outer shell of Roe v. Wade, but beats a wholesale retreat from the substance of that case. We believe that Roe was wrongly decided, and that it can and should be overruled consistently with our traditional approach to stare decisis in constitutional cases. We would adopt the approach of the plurality in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), and uphold the challenged provisions of the Pennsylvania statute in their entirety.

Participating counts on VoteMatch question 1.



Democrats participating in 92-1



Republicans participating in 92-1



Independents participating in 92-1

Anthony Kennedy w1US Supreme Court
Sandra Day O'Connor w1US Supreme Court
William Rehnquist w2dUS Supreme Court
Antonin Scalia j2US Supreme Court
David Souter w1US Supreme Court
John Paul Stevens j1US Supreme Court
Clarence Thomas j2US Supreme Court



Total recorded by OnTheIssues:

Democrats: 0
Republicans: 0
Independents: 7