Sentencia C-355/06 EXCEPCION DE PLEITO ... - Cornell University

permitidas, si no son un obstáculo sustancial al ejercicio delderecho de la mujer a escoger. A menos que tenga un efectoen su derecho a escoger, una medida estatal diseñada parapersuadir a la mujer para que escoja la continuación delembarazo, en lugar del aborto, será válida si se encuentrarazonablemente relacionada con ese fin. Las regulacionesdiseñadas para proteger la salud de una mujer que busca unaborto son validas si no constituyen una carga indebida. 252La decisión esencial de la sentencia fue resumida así por la propia CorteSuprema estadounidense:Aun cuando los juristas parten de las mismas premisas, algúndesacuerdo es inevitable. (...) Nosotros no esperamos que seade otra manera en lo que se refiere al “test” de las cargasindebidas. Presentamos el siguiente resumen:252 Corte Suprema de Justicia, Estados Unidos. Planned Parenthood v. Casey 505 US 833, 192.Votación: 5-4. Magistrados Ponentes: O`Connor, Kennedy, Souter. (Aclaraciones y salvamentos devoto: Stevens, Blackmun, Renquist, White). Texto original: “Roe v. Wade was express in itsrecognition of the State's important and legitimate interest[s] in preserving and protecting [505 U.S.833, 876] the health of the pregnant woman [and] in protecting the potentiality of human life. 410U.S., at 162. The trimester framework, however, does not fulfill Roe's own promise that the State hasan interest in protecting fetal life or potential life. Roe began the contradiction by using the trimesterframework to forbid any regulation of abortion designed to advance that interest before viability. Id.,at 163. Before viability, Roe and subsequent cases treat all governmental attempts to influence awoman's decision on behalf of the potential life within her as unwarranted. This treatment is, in ourjudgment, incompatible with the recognition that there is a substantial state interest in potential lifethroughout pregnancy. Cf. Webster, 492 U.S., at 519 (opinion of REHNQUIST, C.J.); Akron I, supra,462 U.S., at 461 (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting).The very notion that the State has a substantial interest in potential life leads to the conclusion that notall regulations must be deemed unwarranted. Not all burdens on the right to decide whether toterminate a pregnancy will be undue. In our view, the undue burden standard is the appropriate meansof reconciling the State's interest with the woman's constitutionally protected liberty.A finding of an undue burden is a shorthand for the conclusion that a state regulation has the purposeor effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviablefetus. A statute with this purpose is invalid because the means chosen by the State to further theinterest in potential life must be calculated to inform the woman's free choice, not hinder it. And astatute which, while furthering the interest in potential life or some other valid state interest, has theeffect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman's choice cannot be considered apermissible means of serving its legitimate ends.(…)Some guiding principles should emerge. What is at stake is the woman's right to make the ultimatedecision, not a right to be insulated from all others in doing so. Regulations which do no more thancreate a structural mechanism by which the State, or the parent or guardian of a minor, may expressprofound respect for the life of the unborn are permitted, if they are not a substantial obstacle to thewoman's exercise of the right to choose. See infra, at 899-900 (addressing Pennsylvania's parentalconsent requirement). [505 U.S. 833, 878] Unless it has that effect on her right of choice, a statemeasure designed to persuade her to choose childbirth over abortion will be upheld if reasonablyrelated to that goal. Regulations designed to foster the health of a woman seeking an abortion are validif they do not constitute an undue burden.”