Supreme Court Rules On Utah Abortion Law

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 17) -- A Supreme Court ruling today may allow Utah to reinstate a provision of an anti-abortion law that restricts the method of abortion when the fetus could survive outside the womb.

On a 5-4 vote, the high court ruled that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrongfully invalidated Utah's entire anti-abortion law when only most of it was unconstitutional.

The 1991 Utah law banned all abortions except when the mother's life or health was in grave danger, when the child would be born with serious defects, or in cases of rape and incest. U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Greene struck down these parts of the law as unconstitutional and contradictory to the 1973 Supreme Court holding in the landmark Roe v. Wade case.

Greene left intact the "choice of method" provision, which mandated that an abortion performed on a "viable" fetus use a method most likely to save the fetus. A viable fetus is one considered capable of surviving outside the womb. Greene said this part of the law was not unconstitutional and could be enforced independent of the law's other provisions.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Greene, saying the "choice of method" provision was also unconstitutional. The appeals court said even if the provision was constitutional, it could not be severed from a predominantly unconstitutional measure and enforced as law.

The Supreme Court's majority affirmed Greene's ruling, and may allow Utah officials to enforce the "choice of method" part of the law. An unsigned majority opinion said the appeals court misjudged the state legislature's intent when the court ruled that the law's provisions were separately unenforceable. The dissenting justices said the court had no business ruling on an issue that "is purely a question of Utah law." Neither side addressed the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that the appeals court used as precedence. The 1986 decision invalidated Pennsylvania's similar "choice of method" law.

Utah Attorney General Jan Graham asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the constitutional parts of the state law, but the court's ruling sends the decision back to the appeals court in Denver. New, less restrictive abortion legislation was passed by the Utah legislature in February and took effect April 29.

Supreme Court Rules On Utah Abortion Law

Related Stories: