Ricardolindo
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Discounting my 7-Justice analysis, I don't really know how Poff would rule in an abortion case. In 1981 he upheld the conviction of an abortion provider while on the Virginia Supreme Court, but that conviction was also affirmed by the United States Supreme Court 8 to 1.
If he's opposed to the Constitutional right of privacy, then on a nine judge court it's White, Poff, Carswell, Rehnquist, and potentially Burger as the tiebreaker.
It's worth considering that the Court's 1972 abortion case United States v Vuitch was about constitutional requirements regarding prosecution and statutory vagueness. The Court said there (a) 'life and health of the woman' without any further clarification might be vague, it isn't unconstitutionally vague because it's the sort of thing that gets dealt with in medical negligence cases all of the time so it isn't unconstitutionally vague [implicitly, this meant deferring to the standard of a 'reasonable doctor' - i.e., what the medical profession thinks is appropriate - including mental health], (b) that an abortion was not provided for the 'life and health of the woman' is an element to be proven by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt, not something the defendant has to prove, (c) the Court did have jurisdiction.
Only Black, White, and Burger joined the Vuitch opinion in full. Douglas and Stewart joined on the jurisdiction question but dissented on the merits (Stewart and Douglas finding the law unconstitutionally vague, Douglas also suggesting a general right to abortion). Brennan and Marshall didn't address the merits, they dissented on jurisdictional grounds. Harlan and Blackmun joined the opinion on the merits question, but thought there wasn't jurisdiction to hear the case.
On the one hand, you can view Vuitch as a case upholding the banning of almost all abortions in DC. On the other hand, it's a case deferring very heavily to the decisionmaking of the medical profession [including saying that a default meaning for life and health of the woman includes mental health]. If there aren't 5 votes for something like OTL's Roe v Wade, Brennan and his ally Marshall might water themselves down a lot to get to 5. The case outcomes might look a lot like Burger's concurrence in Roe.
Litigation surrounding abortion would end up being much more technical:
What constitutes too much interference by a prosecutor with the practice of a licensed professional?
What makes a statute too vague?
What is the maximum allowable criminal penalty for a person found to breach the abortion right?
How clear must a statute be for a court to not infer broad deference to doctors?
At what point is a gun-ho prosecutor just engaging in tortious interference with a hospital's operations?
Given Griswold's and Stanley's emphases on privacy being tied to not airing private details in court, does the right of privacy at least extend to limiting the sort of evidence a Prosecutor can bring in an abortion prosecution?
As a practical matter, even without Roe, abortion activists could pretty effectively secure doctors much more ability to practice medicine in the abortion context and could make the lives of zealous prosecutors very difficult.
Thanks for the detailed reply
What was the 1981 case?
I was aware of the Vuitch decision.
A related question: What if Blackmun had stuck with the first trimester only?