## Facts

- Nebraska enacted a criminal statute banning “partial birth abortion,” permitting the procedure only when necessary to save the mother’s life.
- The statute defined the prohibited abortion as one in which a physician “partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery,” including delivery of “a substantial portion” for a procedure the physician knows will kill the unborn child.
- Violation was a felony and mandated automatic revocation of the physician’s medical license.
- Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a physician who performed abortions including later-term procedures, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging the law was vague and imposed an undue burden on abortion access.
- The federal district court held the statute unconstitutional, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether a state may criminalize a specified abortion method without an exception for preservation of the pregnant patient’s health under the Due Process Clause as interpreted in *Roe* and *Casey*.
2. Whether statutory language that can be read to cover the standard second-trimester D&E method imposes an undue burden by chilling physicians from providing constitutionally protected abortions.
3. Whether a federal court may refuse a narrowing construction of a criminal abortion statute when such a construction is not fairly supported by the statutory text.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed, holding Nebraska’s statute unconstitutional.
- The Court found the statute invalid because it lacked an exception permitting the prohibited procedure when necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, to preserve the pregnant patient’s health.
- The Court also held the statute’s definitions could reasonably be read to reach not only “intact D&X” but also the more common D&E procedure, creating a substantial risk that physicians would forgo D&E to avoid prosecution and license loss.
- The Court declined to adopt the state’s proposed narrowing reading because it was not fairly possible given the text and the statute’s criminal and professional penalties.

## Legal Principles

- Under *Casey*, a pre-viability abortion regulation is unconstitutional if it has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a person seeking an abortion (an “undue burden”).
- Post-viability restrictions must allow abortions necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant patient.
- A state may not regulate abortion methods in a way that endangers patients’ health; where medical evidence shows a banned method may be safer for some patients, a health exception is required.
- A criminal abortion statute that is broad enough to deter physicians from using the standard, lawful method can impose an undue burden by chilling access to constitutionally protected care.
- Courts will not impose a narrowing construction that is not fairly supported by the statutory language, particularly where criminal liability and professional licensure consequences are triggered.

## Conclusion

The Court held Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion ban unconstitutional because it omitted a health exception required under governing abortion precedents and because its breadth threatened to prohibit or chill the standard D&E method, thereby imposing an undue burden on the right to choose abortion.


Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000)