 | This article may be confusing or unclear to readers. (October 2007) |
| Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued November 30, 2005 Decided January 18, 2006 | |
| Full case name | Kelly A. Ayotte, Attorney General of New Hampshire v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, et al. |
| Docket no. | 04-1144 |
| Citations | 546 U.S. 320 (more) 126 S.Ct. 961; 163 L. Ed. 2d 812; 2006 U.S. LEXIS 912; 74 USLW 4091; 06 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 467; 2006 Daily Journal D.A.R. 667; 19 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 67 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Motion for permanent injunction granted, sub nom., Planned Parenthood v. Heed, 296 F.Supp.2d 59 (D.N.H. 2003), affirmed, 390 F.3d 53 (1st Cir. 2004); cert. granted, sub nom., Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, 544 U.S. 1048 (2005). |
| Holding | |
| Completely invalidating a parental notification statute was unnecessary if its potentially unconstitutional applications could be addressed by more targeted judicial remedies. First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated and remanded. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinion | |
| Majority | O'Connor, joined by unanimous |
| Laws applied | |
| N.H. Rev. Stat. §§ 132:24-132:28 (Supp. 2004) (Parental Notification Prior to Abortion Act) | |
Superseded by | |
| Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) | |
Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, 546 U.S. 320 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving a facial challenge to New Hampshire's parental notification abortion law. The First Circuit had ruled that the law was unconstitutional and an injunction against its enforcement was proper. The Supreme Court vacated this judgment and remanded the case, but avoided a substantive ruling on the challenged law or a reconsideration of prior Supreme Court abortion precedent. Instead, the Court only addressed the issue of remedy, holding that invalidating a statute in its entirety "is not always necessary or justified, for lower courts may be able to render narrower declaratory and injunctive relief."
The opinion was delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who had been significantly responsible for developing the Court's recent abortion jurisprudence.[1] This decision was O'Connor's last opinion on the Court before her retirement on January 31, 2006.
- ^ O'Connor was one of the three attributed authors of the plurality opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), that adopted the "undue burden" standard for reviewing whether abortion regulations were too stringent, a standard she herself had previously formulated in her concurring opinion in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989).