Planned Parenthood of RI v. Bd. of Medical Rev.

• Decision Date: 19 November 1984
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 82-0391 P.
• Citation: 598 F. Supp. 625
• Parties: PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF RHODE ISLAND, et al. v. BOARD OF MEDICAL REVIEW, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

598 F. Supp. 625

PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF RHODE ISLAND, et al. v. BOARD OF MEDICAL REVIEW, et al.

Civ. A. No. 82-0391 P.

United States District Court, D. Rhode Island.

November 19, 1984.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Lynette Labinger, Providence, R.I., Nan D. Hunter, A.C.L.U., New York City, for plaintiffs.

Joseph F. Dugan, Rhode Island Atty. Gen.'s Dept., Providence, R.I., for defendants.

OPINION

PETTINE, Senior District Judge.

This is a class action for declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 challenging the constitutional validity of Rhode Island General Laws, Chapter 23-4.8 entitled "Spousal Notification for Abortion."¹ The Act requires a physician who is planning to perform an abortion to notify the patient's husband of the proposed procedure, if "reasonably possible," before it is performed. This duty to notify the spouse is subject to several enumerated exceptions. The plaintiff alleges that the statute violates rights secured by the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

I. Factual Background

The named plaintiffs in this action are Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island (PPRI), Marshall Taylor, M.D., and Lynn Lowe, M.D. PPRI is a non-business corporation which operates a licensed health care facility in Providence, Rhode Island. The facility provides family planning and birth control services, including, but not limited to, abortions for married women. Doctors Taylor and Lowe are practicing, licensed Rhode Island physicians who specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. In the past, they have performed abortions on women, including married women, and they wish to perform such procedures in the future. The doctors represent themselves and the class of all Rhode Island physicians similarly situated.

The defendants in this case are the Board of Medical Review of the State of Rhode Island ("Board"), Stephen V. Hoie, Seth K. Gifford, and Margaret Joyce Diamond. The Board is the state agency responsible for the enforcement of the spousal notification provisions of R.I.G.L. Chapter 23-4.8 and R.I.G.L. Sec. 5-37.1-5(23) as amended in 1982. The named individual defendants are the Chairman, Secretary, and Executive Director of the Board.

On May 18, 1982, the Rhode Island General Assembly enacted the spousal notification provisions. The enactment was to go into effect on July 1, 1982. On June 18, 1982, however, counsel in this action consented to the entering of a temporary restraining order which suspended enforcement of the statute during the pendency of the case.

The statute provides that if a married woman consents to an abortion, "the physician who is to perform the abortion or his authorized agent shall, if reasonably possible, notify the husband of such woman of the proposed abortion before it is performed." R.I.G.L. Sec. 23-4.8-3. The Act exempts the doctor from the notification obligation if one of four circumstances exists. Notification is not required if: the woman gives the physician either a written statement declaring she has previously given notice to her husband or a statement declaring that her husband is not the father of the fetus; the woman and her husband are separated or have filed for divorce; the doctor receives a written statement from the husband that he has been notified; or there is an emergency requiring immediate action. R.I.G.L. Sec. 23-4.8-3. Doctors who violate the requirements of the spousal notification law shall be guilty of "unprofessional conduct" within the meaning of R.I.G.L. Sec. 5-37.1-5. R.I. G.L. Sec. 23-4.8-4. These physicians are therefore subject to penalties which include suspension or indefinite revocation of their license to practice medicine. R.I.G.L. Sec. 5-37.1-13.

In the course of their normal practice, the plaintiffs in this action provide medical services, including abortions, to married women. These patients include married women who have not notified their husbands of their decision to have an abortion, do not wish to do so, and do not fall within any of the exceptions to the notification requirement of the Rhode Island law. The plaintiffs assert that the Rhode Island law violates their patients' right to privacy in the abortion decision and to the equal protection of the laws.

II. Standing

The plaintiffs in this case clearly have standing to raise the constitutional rights of their patients. In Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 109, 96 S.Ct. 2868, 2871, 49 L.Ed.2d 826 (1976), the United States Supreme Court held that physicians had standing to challenge a Missouri statute which excluded abortions that were not "medically indicated" from the purposes for which medicaid benefits are available to needy persons. The doctors, of course, properly asserted injury-in-fact since the statute threatened them with an actual pecuniary loss of business. Id. at 112-13, 96 S.Ct. at 2873. In addition, however, the Court found that because a patient's constitutionally protected abortion decision is one in which the physician is intimately involved, "the physician is uniquely qualified to challenge the constitutionality of the State's interference with, or discrimination against, that decision." Id. at 117, 96 S.Ct. at 2875. The holding in Singleton is fully applicable to the instant case.

III. The Right to Privacy Claim

A. Applicable Legal Standard

In Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), the Supreme Court of the United States explicitly recognized that an individual's constitutionally protected fundamental right to privacy extends to a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy. This right is grounded in the Due Process Clause's guarantee of liberty, which has long been understood to secure the freedom of personal choice in matters of procreation and marriage. Roe, 410 U.S. at 169, 93 S.Ct. at 734. The holding of Roe was recently reaffirmed in City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Rights, 462 U.S. 416, 103 S.Ct. 2481, 2487, 76 L.Ed.2d 687 (1983). That case reiterated and clarified the analytical test that courts must apply to determine the constitutionality of state regulations that touch and concern the fundamental right to have an abortion.

A constitutionally recognized fundamental right, while it is to be carefully guarded, is not unqualified. See Roe, 410 U.S. at 154-55, 93 S.Ct. at 727 (right to an abortion is not absolute). A state, in the responsible exercise of its police power, may be obligated to pass legislation which in some manner implicates an individual's exercise of a fundamental right. Id. at 154-57, 93 S.Ct. at 727-28. The state, however, must act only within the permissible boundaries of the federal Constitution. In determining the validity of any state abortion regulation, the Court must first inquire whether the challenged regulation has a significant impact on the free exercise of the protected right. Akron, 103 S.Ct. at 2492. Put another way, it must be determined whether the statute imposes a non-de minimus burden on that right. Women's Medical Center of Providence v. Roberts, 530 F.Supp. 1136, 1144 (D.R.I. 1982). If the law does not actually interfere with a woman's decision to have an abortion, it will be upheld if it is rationally related to an important state interest. Akron, 103 S.Ct. at 2493. If the state regulation burdens the right, however, it will be upheld only if it furthers a compelling state interest. Id. at 2491. In addition, the challenged statute must be legitimately related to the compelling state objective. Id. at 2493; Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 194-195, 93 S.Ct. 739, 748-49, 35 L.Ed.2d 201 (1973).²

B. Propriety of Certification to the Rhode Island Supreme Court

The defendants have urged this Court to certify to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island certain questions regarding the proper interpretation of the Rhode Island spousal notification law. They argue that the Supreme Court could feasibly give the statute a construction that would obviate the need to reach the constitutional questions presented by this case. I disagree.

It is certainly true that the fundamental issue in this case—whether a state may constitutionally require a physician to notify his or her patient's husband of an impending abortion procedure—is an important question of federal law which has not yet been addressed by the Supreme Court of the United States.³ Before reaching these constitutional issues, it is this Court's obligation to examine any potentially dispositive questions of state law. If the state law is unsettled, the court should abstain from hearing the federal question until the state court has rendered an authoritative interpretation. Railroad Commission of Texas v. Pullman, 312 U.S. 496, 500-501, 61 S.Ct. 643, 645, 85 L.Ed. 971 (1941). Abstention may be particularly appropriate where, as in Rhode Island, a relatively speedy certification procedure has been available in most cases.⁴Berkshire Cablevision of Rhode Island v. Burke, No. 83-1800, slip op. at 3 (1st Cir. May 4, 1984).

The propriety of abstention, however, must be viewed in light of a federal court's affirmative duty to adjudicate controversies properly before it. The abstention doctrine creates "`an extraordinary and narrow exception'" to that duty. Colorado River Water Conservation District v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 812, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 1243, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976), (quoting County of Allegheny v. Frank Mashuda Co., 360 U.S. 185, 186, 188-189, 79 S.Ct. 1060, 1062, 1063, 3 L.Ed.2d 1163 (1959)). Pullman type abstention, therefore, is appropriate only if the state law in question is ambiguous in some material way. Dionne v. Bouley, 583 F.Supp. 307, 310 (D.R.I.1984). The unconstrued state statute must be susceptible to an interpretation "which might avoid in whole or in part the necessity for federal constitutional adjudication, or at least materially change the nature of the problem." Bellotti v. Baird, 428 U.S. 132, 147, 96 S.Ct. 2857, 2866, 49 L.Ed.2d 844 (1976...