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Pro-Choice Mississippi v. Fordice6/25/1998
DATE OF JUDGMENT: 08/30/95
TRIAL JUDGE: HON. PAT WISE
COURT FROM WHICH APPEALED: HINDS COUNTY CHANCERY COURT
NATURE OF THE CASE: CIVIL - OTHER
BACKGROUND--FEDERAL LITIGATION
. On June 27, 1986, Helen Barnes, M.D., Henry Thomas Gunter, M.D., Mississippi Women's Medical Clinic, New Woman Medical Center (Jackson) and New Woman Medical Center (Bay St. Louis) challenged the facial constitutionality of the parental consent abortion statutes, Miss. Code Ann. ยงยง 41-41-51 through 41-41-63. They sued Bill Allain, then Governor of Mississippi; Edwin Pittman, then Attorney General of Mississippi; the State Board of Medical Licensure, including its members; and the Justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court. The challenge was tried before Judge Henry T. Wingate of the United States Federal District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. Judge Wingate granted a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of the laws until the Mississippi Supreme Court could promulgate rules on parental consent waiver proceedings. The district court also stayed the proceedings for four years, awaiting the outcome of various United States Supreme Court rulings on abortion. Finally, in March 1992, Judge Wingate held that M.R.A.P. 48 (governing appeals from consent waiver proceedings) was unduly restrictive and impaired a minor's access to an abortion. Judge Wingate denied the State's motion to lift the preliminary injunction on enforcement of the challenged statutes. The State appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, who found that the abortion statutes were constitutional in Barnes v. Mississippi, 992 F.2d 1335 (5th Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 976 (1993) (Barnes II).
. Citing Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979), and Hodgson v. Minnesota, 497 U.S. 417 (1990), the Fifth Circuit found that a two- parent consent statute with an adequate judicial bypass met federal constitutional muster. Relying on the plurality opinion in Bellotti, the Court concluded that "if the statute had contained an adequate judicial bypass the four members of the plurality stood ready to uphold it. A fifth, Justice White, was prepared to uphold the statute in Bellotti even without a judicial bypass." Barnes II, 992 F.2d at D.K. In Hodgson, five Justices "viewed Bellotti as settling the question in favor of the constitutionality of a two-parent consent/judicial bypass statute." Id. at 1339. The Barnes II Court concluded that Mississippi's two-parent consent law did not place an "undue burden" on a minor's right to seek an abortion. Id. at 1341.
. The plaintiffs claimed that, even though the statutory judicial bypass might meet constitutional standards, Uniform Chancery Court Rule 10.01, which implements the statute, does not. The Court felt that the contention was hyper-technical and that U.C.C.R. 10.01 was not violative of the Constitution. Barnes II, 992 F.2d at 1342.
. On May 21, 1991, Mississippi Women's Medical Clinic and New Woman Medical Center, joined by Joseph Booker, M.D., Helen Barnes, M.D., and Joseph Mitchell, M.D., filed suit against Attorney General Mike Moore in the United States District for the Southern District of Mississippi to enjoin enforcement of the Informed Consent Act, alleging facial violations of both the United States and Mississippi Constitutions. The district court, on August 30, two days before the act was to become effective, granted an injunction suspending the effective date of enforcement. Barnes v. Moore, 970 F.2d 12, 13 (5th Cir. 1992) (Barnes
I).
. While the appeal was pending, the United States Supreme Court handed down Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Cas
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