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Four provisions of the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982 were being challenged as unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, which first recognized a constitutional right to have an abortion in the liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The "informed consent" rule under the Act required doctors to provide women with information about the health risks and possible complications of having an abortion before one could be performed. The "spousal notification" rule required women to give prior notice to their husbands, and the "parental notification" rule required the same of minors to their parents. The fourth provision imposed a 24-hour waiting period before obtaining an abortion. When the case came before the Court on review, Pennsylvania defended the Act in part by urging the Court to overturn Roe as having been wrongly decided.
The case was a seminal one in the history of abortion rights in the United States, as it was the first direct challenge of Roe since the liberal Justice Brennan was replaced in 1990 with the Bush-appointed and ostensibly conservative Justice Souter. Even most pro choice advocates expected Roe to be overruled and were gearing up for a subsequent State-by-State campaign against particular laws. However, Souter defied expectations and voted to uphold the constitutional right to have an abortion, preserving the precarious 5-4 Court vote in favor, though still changing the Court's abortion rights jurisprudence.
Casey is a divided judgment, in that none of the Justices' opinions was joined by a majority of justices. However, the plurality decision jointly written by Justices Souter, O'Connor, and KennedyAnthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) has been a US Supreme Court Associate Justice since 1988. Kennedy was born in Sacramento, California. He has no relation to the famous Kennedy family dynasty of American politics. He married Mary Davis and has t is recognized as the lead opinion with precedentPrecedent is the principle in law of using the past in order to assist in current interpretation and decision-making. Precedent can be of two types. Binding or mandatory precedent is a precedent under the doctrine of stare decisis that a court must considial weight because each of its parts were concurred in by at least two other Justices, albeit different ones for each part.
Justices BlackmunHarold Andrew Blackmun ( November 12, 1908 March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. He is best known as the author of the majority opinion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision overturning laws restri and StevensJohn Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is an American jurist, who has been a U. Supreme Court Associate Justice since 1975. Stevens was born in Chicago, Illinois. He married Maryan Mulholland, and has four children: John Joseph (deceased), Kathryn, Eliza concurred with the parts of the Court's decision that upheld Roe and invalidated one of the Pennsylvania regulations. On the other side, Chief JusticeThe Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the Judicial Branch of the government of the United States, and presides over the Supreme Court of the United States. The office is often incorrectly referred to as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. RehnquistChief Justice of the United States since 1986. William Hubbs Rehnquist (born October 1, 1924) is an American jurist. He is a former law clerk and Assistant Attorney General and has served as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States since he was elevate and Justice ScaliaAntonin Scalia (born March 11, 1936) has been a US Supreme Court Associate Justice since 1986. He is widely considered the leading conservative voice on the Court. Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey. His mother, Catherine, was born in the Unit each wrote opinions concurring in the parts of the Court's decisions that weakened Roe and upheld abortion regulations and dissented from the rest. Both Rehnquist and Scalia joined each other's concurrence/dissent, and Justice WhiteByron Raymond White ( June 8, 1917 April 15, 2002) won fame both as a bruising running back and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the court by John F. Kennedy in 1962, he served until his retirement in 1993. joined both.