Petitioner
City of Akron
Respondent
Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc.
Petitioner's Claim
That restrictions of a city ordinance on abortions performed during the second trimester of pregnancy do not violate a woman's right to abortion. The Akron Center for Reproductive Health countersued.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Alan G. Segedy
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Stephan Landsman
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (writing for the Court), John Paul Stevens
Justices Dissenting
Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Byron R. White
Place
Washington D.C.
Date of Decision
15 June 1983
Decision
The restrictions were struck down by a vote of 6-3 as an unconstitutional attempt to hinder access to abortion.
Significance
Akron Center for Reproductive Health, in which Justice O'Connor wroteher first major abortion opinion, a dissent, indicated that the future of abortion rights was in doubt--in part because O'Connor seemed to be emerging asa swing vote in the heated abortion debate. Although she did not indicate a desire to outlaw abortion altogether, she made it clear that she had objections to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a woman's right to abortion.
In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the constitutional right to privacy included a woman's right to abortion. The decision proved to be highly contentious, and many states and municipalities attempted to devise methods of restricting access to abortion--focusing particularly onthe second trimester of pregnancy, during which the Supreme Court permitted some regulation of abortion if needed to protect the mother's health.
In 1978, the city of Akron, Ohio, passed an ordinance requiring that all abortions performed in the second trimester of pregnancy be performed in a hospital, rather than a clinic. The regulations also required that parents give consent before abortions could be performed on unmarried minors under the age of15. They also required that the attending physician insure that the patientgive her fully informed consent to the procedure, that there be a 24-hour waiting period between the time a consent form is signed and the time the abortion is performed, and that the fetal remains be disposed of in a humane and sanitary manner.
In 1978, the Akron Center for Reproductive Health, an abortion clinic sued inU.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, challenging the constitutionality of the Akron provisions. After the district court invalidated some parts of the ordinance while upholding others, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed parts of this decision, while reversing other aspects of the lower court's ruling. This rather chaotic result gave rise to three petitions for certiorari, or review, to the Supreme Court, whichgranted two: Akron's and the abortion clinic's.
Right to Abortion Upheld, But Imperiled
The Supreme Court upheld Akron's hospitalization requirement, while affirmingthe lower court's ruling that the provisions on parental consent, informed consent, waiting period, and disposal of fetal remains were unconstitutional.The latter provisions, the Court said, only succeeded in making abortions more expensive, not in making them safer for the mother. Justice Powell wrote the opinion for the Court, which voted 6-3 against the main thrust of the Akronordinance.
The significance of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, however, grew out of the dissenting opinion written by the Court's newest member, O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice. Ever since it was handeddown, Roe v. Wade, which was decided by a vote of 7-2, had been hotlydebated. It now appeared that there was a growing consensus within the Courtitself that Roe needed to be curtailed, if not overturned. O'Connor'sdissent, in which she objected to the trimester approach taken in Roe,proved to be highly influential. Such an approach, she argued, was likely toprove unworkable as technological innovation pushed the time of fetal viability further and further back. Restrictions such as those at issue in Akron should be permitted to stand so long as they did not place an "undue burden" on a mother's decision about whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.For O'Connor, restrictions such as a waiting period were desirable:
Votes on subsequent abortion cases coming before the Court grew ever closer until, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Court didaway with the trimester framework altogether. Although O'Connor voted with the 5-4 majority in Webster, she declined to join in with the view thatRoe v. Wade should be reversed outright. In 1992, in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, she joined Justices Kennedy and Souter in drafting a majority opinion reaffirming the fundamentals of Roe v. Wade.
Related Cases
Abortion Statistics
In the United States, about 25 percent of pregnancies are terminated by womenthrough abortion. This compares similarly to statistics of Canadian women aborting pregnancies; about 21 percent. Countries where contraceptives are lessavailable, report higher abortion rates. In Russia, about 60 percent, and Romania, 78 percent. The percentage of women terminating pregnancies in the United States has been declining since 1979.
In the United States, the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) has tracked the number of abortions since 1970. These figures are obtained directly from providers. The AGI calculates that considering a four percent underreporting of abortions, nearly 37 million abortions have been performed in the United States since 1973. In 1995, 1.2 million were reported by AGI; in 1996 and 1997, the Centers for Disease Control estimated 1.4 million and 1.3 million respectivelyfor each year.
In 1992, the United States rate of abortion was 26 out of every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 to 44 years. In the same year, the ratio of abortion inthe United States was 27.5 abortions per 100 live births.
Sources
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abortion.htm
http://www.bfl.org/stats.htm.
City of Akron
Respondent
Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc.
Petitioner's Claim
That restrictions of a city ordinance on abortions performed during the second trimester of pregnancy do not violate a woman's right to abortion. The Akron Center for Reproductive Health countersued.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Alan G. Segedy
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Stephan Landsman
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Warren E. Burger, Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (writing for the Court), John Paul Stevens
Justices Dissenting
Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, Byron R. White
Place
Washington D.C.
Date of Decision
15 June 1983
Decision
The restrictions were struck down by a vote of 6-3 as an unconstitutional attempt to hinder access to abortion.
Significance
Akron Center for Reproductive Health, in which Justice O'Connor wroteher first major abortion opinion, a dissent, indicated that the future of abortion rights was in doubt--in part because O'Connor seemed to be emerging asa swing vote in the heated abortion debate. Although she did not indicate a desire to outlaw abortion altogether, she made it clear that she had objections to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a woman's right to abortion.
In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the constitutional right to privacy included a woman's right to abortion. The decision proved to be highly contentious, and many states and municipalities attempted to devise methods of restricting access to abortion--focusing particularly onthe second trimester of pregnancy, during which the Supreme Court permitted some regulation of abortion if needed to protect the mother's health.
In 1978, the city of Akron, Ohio, passed an ordinance requiring that all abortions performed in the second trimester of pregnancy be performed in a hospital, rather than a clinic. The regulations also required that parents give consent before abortions could be performed on unmarried minors under the age of15. They also required that the attending physician insure that the patientgive her fully informed consent to the procedure, that there be a 24-hour waiting period between the time a consent form is signed and the time the abortion is performed, and that the fetal remains be disposed of in a humane and sanitary manner.
In 1978, the Akron Center for Reproductive Health, an abortion clinic sued inU.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, challenging the constitutionality of the Akron provisions. After the district court invalidated some parts of the ordinance while upholding others, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed parts of this decision, while reversing other aspects of the lower court's ruling. This rather chaotic result gave rise to three petitions for certiorari, or review, to the Supreme Court, whichgranted two: Akron's and the abortion clinic's.
Right to Abortion Upheld, But Imperiled
The Supreme Court upheld Akron's hospitalization requirement, while affirmingthe lower court's ruling that the provisions on parental consent, informed consent, waiting period, and disposal of fetal remains were unconstitutional.The latter provisions, the Court said, only succeeded in making abortions more expensive, not in making them safer for the mother. Justice Powell wrote the opinion for the Court, which voted 6-3 against the main thrust of the Akronordinance.
The significance of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, however, grew out of the dissenting opinion written by the Court's newest member, O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice. Ever since it was handeddown, Roe v. Wade, which was decided by a vote of 7-2, had been hotlydebated. It now appeared that there was a growing consensus within the Courtitself that Roe needed to be curtailed, if not overturned. O'Connor'sdissent, in which she objected to the trimester approach taken in Roe,proved to be highly influential. Such an approach, she argued, was likely toprove unworkable as technological innovation pushed the time of fetal viability further and further back. Restrictions such as those at issue in Akron should be permitted to stand so long as they did not place an "undue burden" on a mother's decision about whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.For O'Connor, restrictions such as a waiting period were desirable:
[T]he decision to abort is "a stressful one," and the waiting period reasonably relates to the State's interest in ensuring that a woman does not makethis serious decision in undue haste. The decision also has grave consequences for the fetus, whose life the State has a compelling interest to protect and preserve . . . The waiting period is surely a small cost to impose to ensure that the woman's decision is well considered in light of its certain and irreparable consequences on fetal life, and the possible effects on her own.
Votes on subsequent abortion cases coming before the Court grew ever closer until, in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Court didaway with the trimester framework altogether. Although O'Connor voted with the 5-4 majority in Webster, she declined to join in with the view thatRoe v. Wade should be reversed outright. In 1992, in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, she joined Justices Kennedy and Souter in drafting a majority opinion reaffirming the fundamentals of Roe v. Wade.
Related Cases
- Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
- Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989).
- Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S.833 (1992).
Abortion Statistics
In the United States, about 25 percent of pregnancies are terminated by womenthrough abortion. This compares similarly to statistics of Canadian women aborting pregnancies; about 21 percent. Countries where contraceptives are lessavailable, report higher abortion rates. In Russia, about 60 percent, and Romania, 78 percent. The percentage of women terminating pregnancies in the United States has been declining since 1979.
In the United States, the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) has tracked the number of abortions since 1970. These figures are obtained directly from providers. The AGI calculates that considering a four percent underreporting of abortions, nearly 37 million abortions have been performed in the United States since 1973. In 1995, 1.2 million were reported by AGI; in 1996 and 1997, the Centers for Disease Control estimated 1.4 million and 1.3 million respectivelyfor each year.
In 1992, the United States rate of abortion was 26 out of every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 to 44 years. In the same year, the ratio of abortion inthe United States was 27.5 abortions per 100 live births.
Sources
http://www.religioustolerance.org/abortion.htm
http://www.bfl.org/stats.htm.
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