Appellant
United States
Appellee
Dr. Milan Vuitch
Appellant's Claim
That the governing standard of the District of Columbia's anti-abortion law,which states that the mother's "life" and "health" must be at risk in order for an abortion to be performed, is not unconstitutionally vague.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Samuel Huntington
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Joseph L. Nellis and Norman Dorsen
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, John Marshall Harlan II, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
William O. Douglas, Potter Stewart (William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 April 1971
Decision
The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the district court.
Significance
Vuitch was the first decision to rule on the constitutionality of anti-abortion laws. In its aftermath, abortion rights advocates realized that themere absence of anti-abortion laws was insufficient protection for women. Women would need legislation or court decisions to win their right to end a pregnancy.
In 1971, two years before the historic Roe v. Wade legalized a woman'sright to end her pregnancy, a U.S. district court heard the case of Dr. Milan Vuitch. Vuitch was a physician charged with the crime of inducing a medicalabortion in violation of the District of Columbia Code. This law, unchangedsince 1901, made abortion a crime unless "done . . . for the preservation ofthe mother's life or health" and under the direction of a licensed physician.The statute was typical of anti-abortion laws in many states.
Vuitch was a Serbian youth who had studied medicine in Hungary before immigrating to the United States in the mid-1950s. In 1962, shortly after receivinghis medical license, Vuitch started performing abortions in Washington D.C.,Maryland, and Virginia. At a time when abortion was illegal in most states, Vuitch was one of few physicians willing to risk his profession and liberty bytaking on referrals from the budding abortion rights movement. By 1964, he was performing abortions on a full-time basis, eventually ten to 20 each week.
Over the next five years, police tried repeatedly to shut down Vuitch's practice, arresting him more than 12 times. However, except for one conviction inMontgomery County, Maryland, on appeal in 1971, courts found Vuitch innocent.
On 21 April 1971, a court indicted the 54-year-old physician for violating the District of Columbia Code. In a momentous breakthrough for abortion rightsadvocates, Federal District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell declared the law unconstitutionally vague, and dismissed the indictments against Vuitch without waiting for a trial. Gesell stated that under this law, "a physician would not knowif he was committing a crime when he performed an abortion, because a jury might later disagree with his opinion that the mother's health required it. [Thus] the doctors' problem was particularly acute because the burden was on them to prove that the abortion was justified."
This decision left the district without any law on abortion. The public hospital on which most of the district's poor residents relied, D.C. General, soonstopped giving abortions. Private hospitals were similarly restrictive. TheNational Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sued D.C. General Hospital twice, obtainingtwo court orders that forced the hospital to perform more abortions.
In this atmosphere, the Justice Department appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorneys argued that Vuitch had "performed abortions for any woman who desired one, without considering [if] the woman's health [was in jeopardy]."
Is the Abortion Law Constitutional?
Gesell had found the D.C. abortion law vague for two reasons. First, once anabortion took place, the physician "is presumed guilty and remains so unlessa jury can be persuaded that his acts were necessary for the preservation ofthe woman's life and health." Second, the judge felt disturbed by the "ambivalent and uncertain word `health."'
The trial court had examined Williams v. United States (1943) to determine that the D.C. law placed the burden of proof on the defendant once prosecutors had proved an abortion had taken place. In that case, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court had held that the prosecution did not have toprove abortion was unnecessary to preserve life or health to win.
However, Justice Black--on behalf of the Supreme Court majority--stated that"whether or not this is a correct reading of Williams . . . it is an erroneous interpretation of the statute." The D.C. law had "expressly authorized" physicians to perform abortions to preserve a woman's life or health. Itdid not presume the guilt of a doctor for performing the operation.
The Court also agreed that the word "health" carried an "uncertain" and "ambivalent" meaning, which failed to inform a "defendant of the charge against him and therefore . . . offends the Due Process Clause of the Constitution." Gesell had felt the term vague because it did not account for "varying degreesof mental as well as physical health."
The Supreme Court looked to Doe v. General Hospital of the District of Columbia (1970) for guidance. Judge Joseph Waddy had permitted abortions there "for mental health reasons whether or not the patient had a previous history of mental defects." Therefore, the Court found "no reason why this interpretation of the statute should not be followed." Black continued: "Webster's Dictionary . . . defines health as the `state of being . . . sound in body [or] mind.' Viewed in this light, the term `health' presents no problem of vagueness."
The majority decided "the District of Columbia abortion law is not unconstitutionally vague," and "the trial court erred in dismissing the indictment on that ground."
Although Black reversed Gesell's decision, he said that the District law should give "physicians considerable latitude [within the law's restrictions] toperform legal abortions." He added that in future abortion trials, the government must prove that the mother's health was not endangered.
Opinion of the Minority
While agreeing with the Court's opinion regarding jurisdiction over the appeal, Justice Douglas felt that the D.C. abortion law did not meet the requirements of procedural due process. He insisted that a physician's judgment to determine the necessity of a woman's abortion was "highly subjective [and] dependent on the training and insight of the particular physician." He then raiseda question regarding the standard of the D.C. anti-abortion law. "Is the statutory standard so easy to manipulate that although physicians can make good-faith decisions based on the standard, juries can nonetheless make felons outof them?" To further his point, Douglas quoted from Roe v. Wade, thenmaking its way through the Texas courts: A court "evaluating the statutory standard" dealing with abortion laws in Texas, was convinced that the law wasunconstitutionally vague:
Douglas reminded the Court that "abortion statutes [are] heavily weighted with religious teachings and ethical concepts . . . " This encouraged prejudicein the jury. He felt "the drafting of [new] abortion laws [should] protect good-faith medical practitioners from the treacheries of the present law."
The People v. Leon P. Belous
Douglas also mentioned People v. Leon P. Belous (1969). This case involved California physician Belous, who had practiced medicine for 35 years andhad performed abortions during many of those years. A California court convicted Belous in 1967 for violating the state's anti-abortion law (before the passage of a new reform law). The court found him guilty of having accepted akickback from another doctor to whom he had referred a pregnant student.
Belous appealed to the three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeals, but the panel affirmed the lower court's ruling, believing the physicianhad indeed accepted kickbacks. Belous then hired civil rights attorneys A. L. Wirin and Fred Okrand to appeal his case to the California Supreme Court. California abortion rights activists quickly rallied around him, believing hiscase would prove to the state's high court that anti-abortion laws were unconstitutional. The attorneys believed that the principles of 1964's Griswold v. Connecticut should protect a woman's privacy and personal autonomy in child-bearing. They also felt that states should not interfere with a doctor-patient relationship when it came to the termination of a pregnancy.
Oral arguments took place on 4 March 1969, before the seven-judge CaliforniaSupreme Court. On 5 September, the court handed down its much anticipated decision. By a vote of 4-3, Raymond A. Peter's majority overturned the conviction of Belous because California's pre-1967 antiabortion law was too vague to be constitutional.
The old law had allowed women to end their pregnancies in only one instance:when necessary to preserve a woman's life. The words "necessary" and "preserve" were unconstitutionally vague. The court explained: "A showing of immediacy or certainty of death is not essential for a lawful abortion."
The majority also ruled that "The fundamental right of women to choose whether to bear children follows from the Supreme Court's and this court's repeatedacknowledgment of a `right to privacy' or `liberty' in matters related to marriage, family, and sex." The court listed Griswold v. Connecticut (1964) among other precedents for its decision.
As an ironic footnote, in the District of Columbia, the Supreme Court's overturning of United States v. Vuitch in 1971 and upholding of the original law restricting abortion yielded greater access to abortion than ever before. As Vuitch emphasized, "This is a big step forward. Now the government lawyer will be in the position of challenging my medical decision. What are the jury members going to decide when a lawyer tries to tell them that the doctoris wrong about a medical matter? What the Supreme Court did," he pointed out,"was throw the whole mess on the shoulders of American physicians; and thatis the correct position."
Related Cases
United States
Appellee
Dr. Milan Vuitch
Appellant's Claim
That the governing standard of the District of Columbia's anti-abortion law,which states that the mother's "life" and "health" must be at risk in order for an abortion to be performed, is not unconstitutionally vague.
Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Samuel Huntington
Chief Lawyers for Appellee
Joseph L. Nellis and Norman Dorsen
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black (writing for the Court), Harry A. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, John Marshall Harlan II, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
William O. Douglas, Potter Stewart (William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
21 April 1971
Decision
The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the district court.
Significance
Vuitch was the first decision to rule on the constitutionality of anti-abortion laws. In its aftermath, abortion rights advocates realized that themere absence of anti-abortion laws was insufficient protection for women. Women would need legislation or court decisions to win their right to end a pregnancy.
In 1971, two years before the historic Roe v. Wade legalized a woman'sright to end her pregnancy, a U.S. district court heard the case of Dr. Milan Vuitch. Vuitch was a physician charged with the crime of inducing a medicalabortion in violation of the District of Columbia Code. This law, unchangedsince 1901, made abortion a crime unless "done . . . for the preservation ofthe mother's life or health" and under the direction of a licensed physician.The statute was typical of anti-abortion laws in many states.
Vuitch was a Serbian youth who had studied medicine in Hungary before immigrating to the United States in the mid-1950s. In 1962, shortly after receivinghis medical license, Vuitch started performing abortions in Washington D.C.,Maryland, and Virginia. At a time when abortion was illegal in most states, Vuitch was one of few physicians willing to risk his profession and liberty bytaking on referrals from the budding abortion rights movement. By 1964, he was performing abortions on a full-time basis, eventually ten to 20 each week.
Over the next five years, police tried repeatedly to shut down Vuitch's practice, arresting him more than 12 times. However, except for one conviction inMontgomery County, Maryland, on appeal in 1971, courts found Vuitch innocent.
On 21 April 1971, a court indicted the 54-year-old physician for violating the District of Columbia Code. In a momentous breakthrough for abortion rightsadvocates, Federal District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell declared the law unconstitutionally vague, and dismissed the indictments against Vuitch without waiting for a trial. Gesell stated that under this law, "a physician would not knowif he was committing a crime when he performed an abortion, because a jury might later disagree with his opinion that the mother's health required it. [Thus] the doctors' problem was particularly acute because the burden was on them to prove that the abortion was justified."
This decision left the district without any law on abortion. The public hospital on which most of the district's poor residents relied, D.C. General, soonstopped giving abortions. Private hospitals were similarly restrictive. TheNational Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), sued D.C. General Hospital twice, obtainingtwo court orders that forced the hospital to perform more abortions.
In this atmosphere, the Justice Department appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorneys argued that Vuitch had "performed abortions for any woman who desired one, without considering [if] the woman's health [was in jeopardy]."
Is the Abortion Law Constitutional?
Gesell had found the D.C. abortion law vague for two reasons. First, once anabortion took place, the physician "is presumed guilty and remains so unlessa jury can be persuaded that his acts were necessary for the preservation ofthe woman's life and health." Second, the judge felt disturbed by the "ambivalent and uncertain word `health."'
The trial court had examined Williams v. United States (1943) to determine that the D.C. law placed the burden of proof on the defendant once prosecutors had proved an abortion had taken place. In that case, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court had held that the prosecution did not have toprove abortion was unnecessary to preserve life or health to win.
However, Justice Black--on behalf of the Supreme Court majority--stated that"whether or not this is a correct reading of Williams . . . it is an erroneous interpretation of the statute." The D.C. law had "expressly authorized" physicians to perform abortions to preserve a woman's life or health. Itdid not presume the guilt of a doctor for performing the operation.
The Court also agreed that the word "health" carried an "uncertain" and "ambivalent" meaning, which failed to inform a "defendant of the charge against him and therefore . . . offends the Due Process Clause of the Constitution." Gesell had felt the term vague because it did not account for "varying degreesof mental as well as physical health."
The Supreme Court looked to Doe v. General Hospital of the District of Columbia (1970) for guidance. Judge Joseph Waddy had permitted abortions there "for mental health reasons whether or not the patient had a previous history of mental defects." Therefore, the Court found "no reason why this interpretation of the statute should not be followed." Black continued: "Webster's Dictionary . . . defines health as the `state of being . . . sound in body [or] mind.' Viewed in this light, the term `health' presents no problem of vagueness."
The majority decided "the District of Columbia abortion law is not unconstitutionally vague," and "the trial court erred in dismissing the indictment on that ground."
Although Black reversed Gesell's decision, he said that the District law should give "physicians considerable latitude [within the law's restrictions] toperform legal abortions." He added that in future abortion trials, the government must prove that the mother's health was not endangered.
Opinion of the Minority
While agreeing with the Court's opinion regarding jurisdiction over the appeal, Justice Douglas felt that the D.C. abortion law did not meet the requirements of procedural due process. He insisted that a physician's judgment to determine the necessity of a woman's abortion was "highly subjective [and] dependent on the training and insight of the particular physician." He then raiseda question regarding the standard of the D.C. anti-abortion law. "Is the statutory standard so easy to manipulate that although physicians can make good-faith decisions based on the standard, juries can nonetheless make felons outof them?" To further his point, Douglas quoted from Roe v. Wade, thenmaking its way through the Texas courts: A court "evaluating the statutory standard" dealing with abortion laws in Texas, was convinced that the law wasunconstitutionally vague:
How likely must death be? Must death be certain if the abortion is not performed? Is it enough that the womancould not undergo birth without an ascertainably higher possibility of deaththan would normally be the case? What if the woman threatened suicide if theabortion was not performed? . . . Is it sufficient if having the child willshorten the life of the woman by a number of years?
Douglas reminded the Court that "abortion statutes [are] heavily weighted with religious teachings and ethical concepts . . . " This encouraged prejudicein the jury. He felt "the drafting of [new] abortion laws [should] protect good-faith medical practitioners from the treacheries of the present law."
The People v. Leon P. Belous
Douglas also mentioned People v. Leon P. Belous (1969). This case involved California physician Belous, who had practiced medicine for 35 years andhad performed abortions during many of those years. A California court convicted Belous in 1967 for violating the state's anti-abortion law (before the passage of a new reform law). The court found him guilty of having accepted akickback from another doctor to whom he had referred a pregnant student.
Belous appealed to the three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeals, but the panel affirmed the lower court's ruling, believing the physicianhad indeed accepted kickbacks. Belous then hired civil rights attorneys A. L. Wirin and Fred Okrand to appeal his case to the California Supreme Court. California abortion rights activists quickly rallied around him, believing hiscase would prove to the state's high court that anti-abortion laws were unconstitutional. The attorneys believed that the principles of 1964's Griswold v. Connecticut should protect a woman's privacy and personal autonomy in child-bearing. They also felt that states should not interfere with a doctor-patient relationship when it came to the termination of a pregnancy.
Oral arguments took place on 4 March 1969, before the seven-judge CaliforniaSupreme Court. On 5 September, the court handed down its much anticipated decision. By a vote of 4-3, Raymond A. Peter's majority overturned the conviction of Belous because California's pre-1967 antiabortion law was too vague to be constitutional.
The old law had allowed women to end their pregnancies in only one instance:when necessary to preserve a woman's life. The words "necessary" and "preserve" were unconstitutionally vague. The court explained: "A showing of immediacy or certainty of death is not essential for a lawful abortion."
The majority also ruled that "The fundamental right of women to choose whether to bear children follows from the Supreme Court's and this court's repeatedacknowledgment of a `right to privacy' or `liberty' in matters related to marriage, family, and sex." The court listed Griswold v. Connecticut (1964) among other precedents for its decision.
As an ironic footnote, in the District of Columbia, the Supreme Court's overturning of United States v. Vuitch in 1971 and upholding of the original law restricting abortion yielded greater access to abortion than ever before. As Vuitch emphasized, "This is a big step forward. Now the government lawyer will be in the position of challenging my medical decision. What are the jury members going to decide when a lawyer tries to tell them that the doctoris wrong about a medical matter? What the Supreme Court did," he pointed out,"was throw the whole mess on the shoulders of American physicians; and thatis the correct position."
Related Cases
- Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1964).
- Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
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