Opinion
Nos. 98-1930, 99-2000.
Submitted: August 9, 2000.
Decided: August 9, 2000.
Appeals From the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Richmond. Robert E. Payne, District Judge. (CA-98-309-3)
Mark L. Earley, Attorney General of Virginia, William H. Hurd, Solicitor General, Daniel J. Poynor, Assistant Attorney General, Garland L. Bigley, Assistant Attorney General, Rita R. Woltz, Assistant Attorney General, Daniel P. Rodgers, Assistant Attorney General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellants.
Simon Heller, Bebe Jill Anderson, Bonnie Scott Jones, CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE LAW AND POLICY, New York, New York; Karen Ann Raschke, Richmond, Virginia; Janet Lynne Crepps, CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE LAW, Simpsonville, South Carolina, for Appellees.
Before WIDENER, MURNAGHAN, and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published per curiam opinion.
On July 16, 1999, the district court filed its opinion in this case, and on the same day, by a separate document, the district court filed its final order in this case, which is the judgment of the district court. The Commonwealth appealed from this judgment. On appeal, we "review judgments, not statements in opinions." Black v. Cutter Lab., 351 U.S. 292, 297 (1956); Kendall v. City of Chesapeake, 174 F.3d 437, 444 n. 4 (4th Cir. 1999). The judgment of a district court should be affirmed, if correct, although an appellate court may decide for different reasons. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 88 (1943).
The judgment of the district court invalidated the statute in question, Va. Code. Ann. § 18.2-74.2, which in particulars relevant here is indistinguishable from the Nebraska statute at issue in Stenberg v. Carhart, ___ U.S. ___, 68 U.S.L.W. 4702 (2000). See Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-328, 326(9). It invalidated the Virginia statute because the statute imposed an undue burden on the right to an abortion before fetal viability, but for reasons unstated in that judgment; and because the statute did not contain an exception for the health of the mother for a postviability abortion procedure. It also invalidated the Virginia statute because of vagueness. The Court in Carhart came to the same conclusion, as to postviability, because of the absence of a health exception it followed Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 879 (1992); and, as to previability, in the case at hand, also because there was no exception for the health of the mother. Carhart, 68 U.S.L.W. at 4706, 4708 ("Since the law requires a health exception in order to validate even a postviability abortion regulation, it at a minimum requires the same in respect to previability regulation."). The Court, in Carhart, did not decide any question of vagueness. Thus, among other things, the Supreme Court held in Carhart that the Nebraska statute was invalid because it did not contain a "health exception," although the statute covered both pre and postviability, and the procedure in question in that case was "previability regulation." Carhart, 68 U.S.L.W. at 4706, 4708.
It follows that we affirm the judgment of the district court for the reasons we have here expressed. We express no opinion on vagueness or any other question not mentioned in this opinion.
The judgment of the district court is accordingly AFFIRMED.