Abstract

PIP:

A law passed in Utah in 1991 which prohibited abortion except in cases of life endangerment, rape, incest, risk of grave damage to a woman's medical health, or grave fetal defects. The exceptions for women who had been sexually abused were eliminated after 20 weeks gestation. In December 1992, US District Court Judge J. Thomas Greene found the ban unconstitutional as applied to abortions prior to 20 weeks but upheld it as applied to procedures after that point in pregnancy. A three-judge appellate panel later reversed the district court decision in August 1995 on the argument that the prohibition on post-20-week abortions could not stand independent of the ban on earlier procedures. The appeals court also struck down a requirement that physicians performing those abortions allowed after viability use the method most likely to give the fetus the best chance of survival, unless it would endanger a woman's life or cause grave damage to her medical health. In an unsigned opinion issued on June 17, 1996, the US Supreme Court reversed the appeals court decision which struck down Utah's original 1991 ban on abortions. Five justices ruling in Leavitt v. Jane L. found that the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit misapplied Utah precedent when it found that the criminal abortion statute could not be divided into two separate abortion bans, one before and one after 20 weeks gestation. Health care providers will now argue that the ban on post-20-week abortions should be struck down on constitutional grounds. This is the first challenge to a state abortion law to come under High Court review since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.