Stenberg v. Carhart
Headline: Court strikes down Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban for lacking a health exception and for blocking a common abortion method, preserving access for women and doctors while limiting state bans.
Holding: The Court held Nebraska’s ban unconstitutional because it lacks a health exception and its wording reaches the common D&E abortion method, creating an undue burden on women’s access to previability abortions.
- Strikes down Nebraska-style bans unless they include a health exception.
- Keeps the common D&E second-trimester method available to patients and doctors.
- Requires states to draft narrow bans that exclude standard procedures and protect health.
Summary
Background
A Nebraska law criminalized a method called "partial birth abortion," defined to cover delivering a living fetus into the vagina before killing it. A Nebraska physician who performed late second‑trimester abortions challenged the law after a federal trial and appeals court found the statute unconstitutional. The dispute focused on how the law described the banned procedure and whether it left any safe options for women.
Reasoning
The Court applied the framework the Court set out in earlier abortion cases and decided the law fails for two independent reasons. First, the statute contains no exception for situations in which a doctor reasonably believes the banned method is necessary to protect a woman’s health; trial evidence showed some medical authorities and experienced doctors thought the method could be safer in certain cases. Second, the Court concluded the statute’s language also covered the more common D&E abortion method, not just the rare intact delivery technique, and so would block a widely used procedure and impose a substantial obstacle to previability abortion.
Real world impact
The result invalidates the Nebraska ban as written, preserves doctors’ ability to perform D&E and similar second‑trimester procedures, and means that States that want to limit particular techniques must draft narrower laws that include appropriate health exceptions and exclude common methods.
Dissents or concurrances
Several Justices dissented, arguing that the States may prohibit the particular method and that the statute was meant to target only that rare technique; they urged greater deference to legislatures and different readings of medical evidence.
Opinions in this case:
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