Planned Parenthood of Middle Tennessee v. Sundquist9/15/2000
, § 202(b), and (c) (the informed consent and physician only counseling requirements); that after receiving this information, the patient must wait a mandatory two-day period before returning to the attending physician, signing a consent form, and obtaining the abortion, § 202(d)(1) (the mandatory waiting period requirement); and, finally, that medical emergency exceptions to the two-day waiting period requirement and the informed consent requirements are permitted when the patient's life would otherwise be in danger, § 202(d)(3), and (g) (the medical emergency exceptions).
Plaintiffs, including Planned Parenthood Association of Nashville, Inc., Memphis Planned Parenthood, Inc., Washington Hill, M.D., Peter Cartwright, M.D., and Frank Boehm, M.D., [hereinafter "Planned Parenthood"], filed suit in the Davidson County Circuit Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under both the state and federal constitutions. Planned Parenthood alleged that certain provisions of Tennessee's criminal abortion statutes, including those listed above, violate a woman's rights to liberty, privacy, procreational autonomy, due process, equal protection of the laws, freedom of travel, freedom of conscience, and freedom of speech under article I, §§ 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 19, 27 and article XI, §§ 8, 16 of the Tennessee Constitution; and article I, § 8; article IV, § 2; and, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Planned Parenthood argued at trial that this Court's decision in Davis v. Davis, 842 S.W.2d 588, 600 (Tenn. 1992), recognized that the right to procreational autonomy is a fundamental right and that, consequently, Tennessee's criminal abortion statutes cannot be upheld because they are not narrowly tailored to further compelling state interests. The State argued that Davis should be abandoned in light of the United States Supreme Court's abortion decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1992). In the Casey joint opinion, the "strict scrutiny" constitutional standard of review announced in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S. Ct. 705, 35 L. Ed. 2d 147 (1973), the standard most protective of fundamental constitutional rights, was abandoned, and the "undue burden standard," a standard which affords states broader powers to enact regulatory legislation, was adopted. Casey, 505 U.S. at 878, 112 S.Ct. at 2821 (joint opinion of O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.)
The trial court applied the undue burden standard and struck down the waiting period requirement, Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-15-202(d)(1), and the informed consent subsection requiring that physicians inform their patients that "abortion in a considerable number of cases constitutes a major surgical procedure," § -202(b)(4). The trial court, however, upheld the second trimester hospitalization requirement, the remaining informed consent requirements, and the medical emergency exceptions.
The Court of Appeals expressed the view that our description of the nature and scope of the right of procreational autonomy in Davis was based "exclusively on decisions of the United States Supreme Court," and that Planned Parenthood v. Casey's undue burden standard is consistent with the right of procreational privacy recognized in Davis. The Court of Appeals found that Casey's undue burden standard "appropriately balances a woman's right to procreational autonomy with the State's significant interest in protecting maternal health and potential human life" and adopted the undue burden standard.
The Court of Appeals concluded that the following provisions are unconstitutional for imposing an undue burden: the residency requirement, Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-15-201(d); the informe
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