Colautti v. Franklin

Colautti v. Franklin was one of the many Supreme Court decisions made between 1976 and 1986 that struck down state laws that attempted to discourage abortion.

The Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act was passed by the Pennsylvania legislature, over the governor's veto, in 1974, the year after the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade (1973). The Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act held a physician to potential criminal liability if he or she performed an abortion and failed to use a technique prescribed by law when the fetus is viable or when there is sufficient reason to believe that the fetus may be viable. Section 5(a) of the act stated that if the fetus was or may be viable, the person performing the abortion was required to exercise the same care to preserve the life and health of the fetus as would be required in the case of a fetus intended to be born alive. The person performing the abortion was also required to adopt the abortion technique providing the best opportunity for the fetus to be aborted alive, so long as a different technique was not necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania declared that section 5(a) of the act was unconstitutionally vague, overly broad, and forbade the enforcement of the law. Each side of the case sought a class-action determination and the apellant's motion to this effect was granted. The case went to trial in January of 1975. Expert witnesses testified about all aspects of abortion procedures. The court upheld some of the acts provisions and found others unconstitutional. It invalidated the viability-determination and standard-of-care provisions of section 5(a).