Landmark Court Case

Since the formation of the United States, landmark court cases have helped shape the laws of the country. Many factors determine the outcome of these cases such as the morality of the justices and the mind set of the generation it occurred during. For example, extremely conservative Supreme Court justices are not going to vote in favor of a liberal court cases. These factors were what decided the outcome of Planned
Parenthood v. Casey.
One way to understand the outcome of a case is to understand the people involved. The petitioner of this case was the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern
Pennsylvania and the respondent was Casey (Oyez, paragraph 1). The advocates for this case were Kathryn Kolbert, Ernest D. Preate, Jr., and Kenneth W. Starr
The justices on the Supreme Court during this case were Rehnquist, White, Blackmun, Stevens, O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Scouter, and
Thomas (Oyez, paragraph 4). The case was completely in the hands of these people and their actions.
The odd part about this case is that the issues it was brought up on weren’t really anything major. The deed that ignited this case was when Pennsylvania passed the
Abortion Control Act (pbs, paragraph 2). This law would have made a minor get permission from one of her parents or in special cases a court could waive this requirement (pbs, paragraph 2). If the woman is not a minor, she must let her husband know of her decision before the abortion is conducted, but in medical emergencies she does not need to infirm him (pbs, paragraph 2). However, in both cases the woman must go a twenty-four hour waiting period (pbs, paragraph 2). During this waiting period the woman receiving the abortion will be given information regarding the abortion (pbs, paragraph 2). Lastly, this law made it mandatory for all abortion clinics to report to the state (pbs, paragraph 2). These do not really seem like that much of an issue to create a lawsuit. The ruling in this had many sources from which they derived their decision.
They also stated that the government may not interfere with an individual’s decision about abortion, family, planning, marriage, and education (Britannica, paragraph 3). The court additionally upheld the twenty-four hour wait period and the requirement for a minor to receive a parent’s consent (Oyez, paragraph 4). This ruling was met in a five to four decision in favor of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania (oyez, paragraph
4). The five justices that voted in favor were Blackmun, Stevens, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter (oyex, paragraph 4). The four justices that did no vote in favor were
Rehnquist, White, Scalia, and Thoms (oyez, paragraph 4). Really these requirements don’t restrict an abortion.
Another thing that the Supreme Court did concerning this case was that they changed the test used to decide whether an abortion law is unconstitutional. The test that they put into action is the “undue burden” test (Britannica, paragraph 3). This test states that a law is unconstitutional if it is trying to create tremendous obstacles to prevent