In this § 1983 action for declaratory and injunctive relief, the plaintiff, a physician, sought judgment against the State Board of Medicine (Virginia), the Attorney General of Virginia, and two Virginia hospitals, that certain provisions of the Virginia antiabortion statutes1 and the related statute authorizing the State Board of Medicine to suspend any licensed physician upon conviction of a violation of those anti-abortion statutes,2 were unconstitutional, and in that connection prayed for injunctive relief against any restriction upon, or suspension of, the plaintiff’s right to practice medicine within the Commonwealth of Virginia, or to continue as a staff member of the two defendant hospitals on account of his conviction under the anti-abortion statutes. The District Court dismissed the action under the authority of Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1970), *322and related cases. The plaintiff has appealed that dismissal. We affirm.
This action originated with plaintiffs arrest on November 29,1979, under a warrant charging him with the crime of “performing on a minor, 17 years of age, an abortion during the second trimester of pregnancy and outside a hospital licensed by the State Department of Health or under the control of the State Board of Mental Health and Mental Retardation,” in violation of § 18.2-73.3 After arrest, he demanded a preliminary hearing prior to submission of any indictment to the grand jury. This request was granted. The preliminary hearing, however, was continued at the plaintiffs request, from the date originally set until January 15, 1980. While the preliminary hearing was thus delayed, the plaintiff instituted on December 27, 1979, a § 1983 action in the District Court styled Simopoulos v. Horan, to enjoin any prosecution under the arrest warrant, as well as any other prosecutions under § 18.2-73, on the ground that the statute on which the prosecution was based was unconstitutional. The District Court being “of the opinion that it should abstain from interfering in that State’s prosecution,” dismissed that action on January 16, 1980. The plaintiff appealed the dismissal, and pending hearing of that appeal, sought from the Court a temporary injunction against prosecution. The request for injunctive relief pending appeal was denied and later, by consent, the appeal itself was dismissed. The prosecution in the State Circuit Court then proceeded and resulted in the plaintiff’s conviction and sentencing on April 18, 1980. That conviction has been appealed and is now pending before the Virginia Supreme Court.
Upon the defendant’s conviction in the State Circuit Court being certified to it, the defendant Board of Medicine revoked the plaintiff’s Virginia license to practice medicine on May 23, 1980, pursuant to § 54-321.2 of the Virginia Code (1950) as amended. Under the terms of that section, the defendant secretary of the Board of Medicine is directed to suspend “without a hearing, the certificate or license of any person,” who has “suffered a conviction as described in § 54r-317.1(l) .... ” One of the grounds of “unprofessional conduct” by a “practitioner of medicine” under § 54-317(1) is engaging “in any manner or by any means whatsoever to procure or perform or to aid or abet in procuring or performing a criminal abortion; ...” § 54-321.2, however, provides that any person whose license to practice medicine has been suspended thereunder may apply “for termination of such suspension or revocation and reinstatement of his certificate or license.” When such application is made the Board of Medicine is obligated to give the applicant a full hearing, with the right to be represented by counsel, and to summon witnesses in his behalf. The proceedings on such application before the Board are to be “recorded formally.” The revocation of a suspension requires the “affirmative vote of three fourths of the members at the hearing.” Should the application for revocation be denied by the Board, the applicant has a right to appeal “to the circuit court of the county or the circuit or corporation court of the city within whose jurisdiction he resides, for a review of such proceedings.” § 54-320, Virginia Code (1950).
After being advised of the suspension of his license, the plaintiff requested orally a hearing before the Board of Medicine for the purpose of seeking a revocation or stay, pending appeal of his criminal conviction, of the suspension. A hearing on that request was set for July 18,1980. Without waiting, however, for such hearing the plaintiff filed this action in the United States District Court on June 5, 1980. He stated his “claims” on the basis of which he sought relief as follows:
“(I) Va.Code § 54-321.2 is unconstitutional on its face and as applied, for failure to provide a pre-revocation hearing consistent with the due *323process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment;
“(II) Defendants cannot revoke or suspend Dr. Simopoulos’ license and/or hospital privileges because the underlying conviction was based on a statute, Va.Code § 18.2-71, -74, which is unconstitutional in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses, and right of privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment.”
In setting forth his request for judgment he asked for “[djeclaratory judgments that Va. Code §§ 54-321.2 and 18-2-71, -74, are unconstitutional in violation of the due process and equal protection clauses, and right of privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment,” and for injunctive relief, both preliminary and permanent, restoring him to “his unrestricted license to practice medicine” and to “the hospital staff membership and privileges which he previously held” at the two defendant hospitals. Contemporaneous with the filing of his complaint, the plaintiff moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, accompanying such motion with supporting authorities. On June 20, 1980, the District Court denied the motion and dismissed the action. In so doing, the District Court restated its earlier decision in Simopoulos v. Horan to abstain from consideration of the plaintiff’s attack on the constitutionality of the Virginia anti-abortion statute and found that § 54-321.2 was on its face reasonable, citing Christhilf v. Annapolis Emergency Hospital Ass’n., Inc., 496 F.2d 174 (4th Cir. 1974). It added that the plaintiff, if he felt aggrieved at the suspension of his license, might apply for a hearing before the Board of Medicine. From that dismissal the plaintiff has appealed.
On July 18, 1980, the plaintiff was heard in person and by counsel on his application to the Board of Medicine for a revocation of his suspension, pending appeal of his conviction to the Virginia Supreme Court. On July 29, 1980, the plaintiff was officially notified that his application was denied. The plaintiff has appealed this denial of his application to the State Circuit Court, as authorized under the statute. He has “based” his appeal “upon inconsistencies between the Board’s hearing on the matter and the requirements of the Administration Process Act, Va.Code 9-6.14, et seq.” In his counsel’s letter transmitting his notice of appeal the plaintiff disclaimed expressly “an attempt on [his] part to pursue dual appeals in state and federal courts on the same questions. Dr. Simopoulos’ appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit involves questions of federal law that are separate and distinct from the state law issues that will be raised before the Fifteenth Circuit Court, City of Richmond.”4
To recapitulate: the plaintiff has appealed to this Court the dismissal of this action in the District Court for declaratory and injunctive relief, and it is this appeal which is before us. He has also appealed his criminal conviction under the abortion statute to the State Supreme Court; and, under the procedure for appeal from decisions of the Board of Medicine, as provided in § 54-321.-2, he has appealed the denial of either a revocation or a stay, pending appeal, of his license suspension to the State Circuit Court. The District Court held, as we have said, that dismissal of the federal action was mandated under the principles declared in Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1970), and related cases, leaving plaintiff to the litigation of his state and federal claims in the state court. The issue on appeal thus is whether the Younger doctrine proscribes the maintenance of plaintiff’s action for declaratory and injunctive relief in the federal court. The resolution of this issue requires examination of the Younger doctrine as it applies *324to the federal action and the relation of such doctrine to the facts of this case.
In Younger and the five other cases decided the same day,5 often described as the “February Sextet,”6 the Supreme Court formulated the principles restraining interference by federal courts with state court proceedings. Under these principles when relief sought by a plaintiff in a federal action is available in a pending state criminal proceeding, the federal court, except in certain specific extraordinary circumstances, must apply equitable estoppel and abstain by dismissing outright the federal suit and by requiring the “presentation of all claims, both state and federal, to the state courts.” 7 This rule generally known as the Younger doctrine, does not extend merely to direct relief against the state prosecution; it “denies any relief that depends on resolution of the constitutional issue raised in the state case.”8 Accordingly, it not' only denies federal injunctive relief against the state action; it also closes the door of the federal court to an action for “prospective” relief by way of a declaratory judgment finding the statute involved in the criminal proceeding unconstitutional.9 The basis for this doctrine was stated to be consideration of equity, comity and federalism.10 In exposition of these considerations, the Supreme Court observed that traditionally courts of equity did not interfere with criminal prosecutions, where the complaining party has an adequate remedy at law and will not suffer irreparable injury if injunctive relief is not granted. An even more vital consideration for the doctrine than equitable principles was stated to be that of comity, which assumes that a federal government fares best where there is due respect accorded the separate functioning of the States. And, lastly, abstention by federal courts was prompted by consideration of federalism which recognizes that a “National Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the States.”11
The Supreme Court in Younger had not dealt explicitly with the application of its principles to civil cases, though there was some language in Justice Black’s opinion for the Court suggesting that the same considerations that denied federal relief in state criminal proceedings might apply also to certain state civil proceedings.12 How*325ever, we concluded in Lynch v. Snepp, 472 F.2d 769, 773 (4th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 415 U.S. 983, 94 S.Ct. 1576, 39 L.Ed.2d 880 (1974), that, in a proper set of circumstances, Younger would apply to state civil proceedings in the same way as it did to a state criminal proceeding, since that doctrine “should never be made to turn on such labels as ‘civil’ or ‘criminal’ but rather upon an analysis of the competing interests in each case.” And Justice Rehnquist, as Circuit Justice, in denying a stay of a Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Cousins v. Wigoda, 463 F.2d 603 (7th Cir. 1972), declared that prior Supreme Court decisions had indicated that on purely comity grounds federal courts should not “casually enjoin the conduct of pending state court proceedings of either [criminal or civil] type.” Cousins v. Wigoda, 409 U.S. 1201, 1206, 92 S.Ct. 2610, 2614, 34 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972). Three years later, the Supreme Court itself, while making “no general pronouncements upon the applicability of Younger to all civil litigation,”13 created “a limited ‘civil counterpart’ to the Younger criminal doctrine,” under which the same restraints on federal action commanded by considerations of comity and federalism [in the criminal context], would extend to state civil proceedings to which the state was a party and which was operated in aid of and by way of facilitating compliance with a state’s criminal laws. It, also, proceeded to declare that a party, before he was entitled to invoke federal intervention under § 1983 was required to exhaust all possible state appellate proceedings.14
The extension of Younger to state civil proceedings of a “quasi-criminal” type in Huffman was further broadened .in Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327, 97 S.Ct. 1211, 51 L.Ed.2d 376 (1977), Trainor v. Hernandez, 431 U.S. 434, 97 S.Ct. 1911, 52 L.Ed.2d 486 (1977), and Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. 415, 99 S.Ct. 2371, 60 L.Ed.2d 994 (1979). The Supreme Court stressing that the rationale for the Younger doctrine went well beyond the traditional principles of private equity jurisprudence and rested primarily on comity, said in Juidice:
“We now hold, however, that the principles of Younger and Huffman are not confined solely to the types of state action which were sought to be enjoined in those cases. As we emphasized in Huffman, the ‘more vital consideration’ behind the Younger doctrine of nonintervention lay not in the fact that the state criminal process was involved but rather
“ ‘in the notion of “comity,” that is, a proper respect for state functions, a recognition of the fact that the entire country is made up of a Union of separate state governments, and a continuance of the belief that the National Government will fare best if the States and their institutions are left free to perform their separate functions in their separate ways.’ ”15
This language, as well as the language of the Supreme Court in Trainor v. Hernandez, supra, prompted one commentator to declare that “[i]ncreasingly, the Younger rationale is based not on considerations of equity, comity and federalism, but upon comity and federalism alone," a result which he finds, may foreshadow “an extension of the Younger doctrine, without exception, to all pending state proceedings,” despite the Juidice-Trainor Court’s express *326reservation of the question of extending Younger to all pending state litigation.16 And the decisions in Juidice and later cases bore out, to some extent at least, this prediction. Thus, in Juidice, the Court applied Younger to a suit attacking a state contempt proceeding arising out of a suit between private parties, holding that the state interest in vindicating “the regular operation of its judicial system” was sufficient on comity and federalism grounds to foreclose federal action;17 in Trainor to an attachment proceeding incident to a state suit brought in the state’s sovereign capacity to recover welfare payments alleged to have been fraudulently obtained,18 and in Moore, to a proceeding under a state family code to remove an abused child from parental custody under which an ex parte removal of the child from parental control, subject to a later hearing, was authorized.19
Whether Younger applies where the state proceeding is pending before a state administrative agency rather than a state court is a question which has not yet been explicitly answered by the Supreme Court. Gibson v. Berryhill, supra, 411 U.S. 564, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 36 L.Ed.2d 488, indicates that, under certain circumstances, such pendency would be sufficient to invoke Younger. There, the pending state proceedings was before the State Board of Optometry, with right of appeal to the state court, and involved the revocation of the plaintiff’s professional license. The Supreme Court appears to have assumed that Younger could bar plaintiff’s § 1983 action but refused to apply it because it found the Board “biased,” thereby denying the plaintiff a fair state administrative tribunal for the resolution of his constitutional claims. And in Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U.S. 471, 97 S.Ct. 1898, 52 L.Ed.2d 513 (1977), the Court found that, because the state agency defendants had not claimed, but had specifically waived any claim for abstention, it “need not and [did] not express any view on [or decide] whether the District Court erred in refusing to abstain on Younger grounds.” 431 U.S. at 480, n. 10, 97 S.Ct. at 1904 n. 10. However, the Court did comment that Younger “reflects ‘a system in which there is sensitivity to the legitimate interests of both State and National Governments, and in which the National Government, anxious though it may be to vindicate and protect federal rights and federal interests, always endeavors to do so in ways that will not unduly interfere with the legitimate activities of the State, ‘(citing cases). Younger and these cited cases express equitable principles of comity and federalism. They are designed to allow the State an opportunity to ‘set its own house in order’ when the federal issue is already before a state tribunal.”20 The term “state tribunal” in Hodory was undoubtedly used advisedly and clearly would comprehend a state administrative proceeding, particularly if the decision of the administrative agency were subject to appeal to the state court under procedures permit*327ting the assertion of constitutional claims. And in Rucker v. Wilson, 475 F.Supp. 1164 (E.D.Mich.1979), a case almost identical in many aspects with this case, the Court applied Younger in the context of a state administrative proceeding.
In Rucker, the plaintiff, a physician, had been charged “with a number of improprieties in connection with the performance of abortions.” These improprieties had occurred in 1973 and 1974. The hearings on those charges before the Michigan Board of Medicine were delayed until the Spring of 1979. The plaintiff claimed the delay in pressing the charges denied him due process. When the Board refused to sustain this claim and proceeded with its hearing on the charge, the plaintiff began his § 1983 federal action. The defendant Board sought dismissal of the action on the basis of the Younger doctrine. After remarking that the State was in fact a party to the administrative proceedings and that those proceedings were closely related to the state criminal laws dealing with abortions, the Court stated that if the state proceedings had been “before a court, this court could merely cite Huffman and dismiss the case.” It proceeded to apply Younger to the proceedings, declaring that the position of the plaintiff in resisting abstention differs from that of the plaintiff in Huffman “only in the type of tribunal before which the state proceedings are being held.” Under such circumstances, the Court upheld defendant’s claim of abstention with this reasoning:
“All of the same interests exist here as existed there, and for all the same reasons of comity, equity, and federalism, this court holds that the Younger doctrine does apply to administrative proceedings like this one where the state is a party. The enforcement of state criminal laws is involved, and there is a right to appeal any federal constitutional questions to the state courts. It is important to give litigants a fair opportunity to be heard in court, but there is no reason to give everyone two full bites at the judicial apple. The appeal process is more than adequate protection for the constitutional rights involved here.”21
We find the reasoning of Rucker convincing,22 though it is not necessary to go as far in this case as the Court did in Rucker, since there is pending an appeal to the State Circuit Court from the decision of the Board of Medicine in refusing a revocation of plaintiff’s suspension.
The Supreme Court has, as the plaintiff argues, recognized certain exceptions to the applicability of Younger but these exceptions were restricted by Younger to what it described as “exceptional and extremely limited circumstances,” creating a threat of great, immediate and irreparable injury.23 The Court added that, in order to meet the test of “irreparable injury,” the threat of the plaintiff’s federally protected rights must be one that cannot be eliminated by his defense against a single criminal prosecution.24 Later, in subsequent cases, the Court, in shifting from equity, comity and federalism to comity and federalism alone as the rationale for its abstention doctrine,25 had made it plain that, save in one situation we discuss later, “vital considerations” of comity and federalism permit a disregard of Younger only if the state procedure fails to provide the federal plaintiff with an adequate opportunity to litigate in the state forum his constitutional claim. In fact, this, as we have observed, is what the Court said in Younger. It made the point clearer in Kugler v. Helfant, 421 U.S. 117, 124, 95 S.Ct. 1524, 1530, 44 L.Ed.2d 15 (1975):
“Only if ‘extraordinary circumstances’ render the state court incapable of fairly and fully adjudicating the federal issues *328before it, can there be any relaxation of the deference to be accorded to the state criminal process.”
And recently in Moore v. Sims, 442 U.S. at 430, 99 S.Ct. at 2381 (involving a civil proceeding), the Court, after emphasizing that the real premise for Younger was comity, said that:
“The price exacted in terms of comity [to abstain from interference with pending state proceedings] would only be outweighed [by the need to allow federal intervention] if state courts were not competent to adjudicate federal constitutional claims — a postulate we have repeatedly and emphatically rejected. Huffman, supra, [420 U.S.] at 610-11 [95 S.Ct. at 1211]. In sum, the only pertinent inquiry [in determining whether there are ‘exceptional circumstances’ justifying disregard of Younger\ is whether the state proceedings afford an adequate opportunity to raise the constitutional claims, . ...”26
And, as was the case in Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975), all the exceptions based on “exceptional considerations,” have involved situations in which the federal plaintiff’s claim for federal relief was not such as could be resolved in a pending state proceeding. Thus, bad faith or harassment, i.e., “official lawlessness,” in the prosecution,27 lack of an unbiased and impartial state tribunal,28 the absence of a pending state proceeding in which the federal plaintiff might assert his constitutional claim,29 all present situations which afford the plaintiff no adequate state remedy for the resolution of his constitutional claim.30 The single “exceptional circumstance” not meeting this test is that based on the claim that the underlying statute for.either the criminal or civil proceeding was “flagrantly and patently” unconstitutional. In stating this exception initially, the Court was careful to point out that “facial invalidity” of the challenged statute would not qualify under this exception. Thus, in Huffman, the Court declared, referring back to Younger.
“But we unequivocally held that facial invalidity of a statute is not itself an *329exceptional circumstance justifying federal interference with state criminal proceedings.” 31
Later, in Juidice, the Supreme Court defined the “flagrantly and patently” unconstitutional exceptions with greater specificity and more narrowly as requiring invalidity “in every clause, sentence and paragraph, and in whatever manner and against whomever an effort might be made to apply it,”32 a standard so rigorous as to make the exception, in the words of Professor Laycock, “meaningless.”33 As a practical matter, then, “the centerpiece of a test for the application of Younger*’ is always the adequacy of the state forum in providing the federal plaintiff an opportunity to raise his constitutional claim and, if there is, comity commands abstention by the federal court.34
Applying the Younger doctrine, as it has developed in subsequent decisions, to the facts of this case, we have no doubt that the attempt by the plaintiff to secure either declaratory or injunctive relief against the state abortion statute (§§ 18.2-71, et seq., Code of Virginia (1950) as amended) is foreclosed by the decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), which involved the éxact issue posed by the plaintiff in this case in his attack on the present statute. In Roe, a physician, was charged, as the plaintiff was in this case, with violation of a state criminal abortion statute. He asserted standing as a “potential future defendant” because of threats of other prosecutions, he sought to intervene in a pending action involving a constitutional attack on a statute similar to the one under which he was being prosecuted, and prayed for a declaratory judgment of the unconstitutionality of the statute under which he had been convicted. The District Court upheld his standing, granted his motion to intervene, and entered a declaratory judgment against the statute’s validity. On Appeal, the Supreme Court reversed, saying:
“Our decision in Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 91 S.Ct. 764, 27 L.Ed.2d 688 (1971), compels the conclusion that the District Court erred when it granted declaratory relief to Dr. Hallford instead of refraining from so doing.”35
The only way in which the plaintiff could challenge such a result would be by a claim of “official lawlessness,” to use Justice Stewart’s phrase in Younger, quoted supra, or of the lack of an opportunity to raise his constitutional claim in the state forum. The plaintiff makes no claim of “official lawlessness” in this case.
His attack on the license suspension statute (§ 54-321.2, Code of Virginia (1950) as amended), on the other hand, falls within the proscription established in Huffman. Since § 54-321.2 was clearly enacted in aid of and for the purpose of facilitating the standards established in the state abortion statute, it unquestionably qualified for abstention under the “quasi-criminal” standard established in Huffman.36 It is true that the plaintiff’s state remedy for challenging § 54-321.2 is initially in the administrative proceedings before the Board of Medicine, but any decision in those proceedings is subject to broad judicial review. The plaintiff’s status in the administrative proceedings is exactly like that of the plaintiff in Scruggs v. Campbell, supra, 630 F.2d 237, as well as the plaintiffs in Berryhill, *330supra, 411 U.S. 564, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 36 L.Ed.2d 488, and in Rucker, supra, 475 F.Supp. 1164. In those cases, as we have already seen, the pendency of an administrative proceeding subject to broad judicial review, was held expressly in Scruggs and Rucker, and implicitly in Berryhill, to support Younger treatment. And this is particularly so in this case, since before any substantive action in favor of the plaintiff had begun, the plaintiff had appealed the administrative decision by the Board of Medicine to the state court. This circumstance brought the present case within our language in Scruggs, 630 F.2d at 239:
“Although no state suit was pending when the Scruggs filed their federal action, federal abstention became appropriate when the board sought review in the state court. After the state suit was brought to the attention of the district court, it properly abstained because no proceedings on the merits of the claim had been conducted in the federal courts. Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 349-50 [95 S.Ct. 2281, 2291-92],...”
Accordingly, whether we follow the reasoning of Rucker or not, the fact that, before any substantial action in this federal action had taken place, the administrative proceedings had been appealed to, and its decision was under broad review before the state court, brought the proceeding within the' rule stated in Hicks and followed by us in Scruggs.37
It remains to note some special arguments made by the plaintiff on this appeal. It seems to have been the plaintiff’s idea that in his appeal from the action of the Board of Medicine on his license suspension, he could bifurcate his appeal, submitting only state issues to the state court and federal constitutional claims to the federal court in his proceedings in the district court, thereby sustaining jurisdiction in the district court. But in Huffman the Supreme Court made it quite clear that no such “truncation” was permitted.38 The plaintiff also complains of the delay that inheres in the state appellate proceedings and suggests that this delay provides a basis for an exception to Younger, thus permitting the maintenance of his federal suit. This argument, too, was answered against the plaintiff in Huffman.39 The argument by the plaintiff that, in his district court action, he is not attacking his conviction but only seeking “prospective” relief is disingenuous. In his complaint, at least thirty-five para*331graphs40 constitute exclusively an attack on his conviction and the statute under which he was convicted and, in his prayer, he asks for specific declaratory relief against the specific antiabortion statute under which he was convicted. It may be that he conceives of declaratory relief as “prospective” but, if he does, that is not a justification for disregarding Younger. Samuels v. Mackell, supra, as we have seen, declares unequivocally that declaratory relief is not to be distinguished from injunctive relief and is equally within the proscriptions of the Younger doctrine.
It follows that the District Court correctly dismissed this action, and remitted the plaintiff to his two pending state appeals for the redress of his rights, whether under state or federal law. Since we affirm the dismissal, the grant of an injunction pending appeal of the plaintiff’s suspension under § 54-321.2 is vacated.
The judgment of the District Court is accordingly
AFFIRMED.
. §§ 18.2-71, et seq., Code of Virginia (1950) as amended.
. § 54-321.2, Code of Virginia (1950) as amended.
. This section was enacted in 1975 as an amendment to § 18.2-71 in order to bring the latter “into compliance with Roe v. Wade, .. . . ” Note, Twentieth Annual Survey of Developments of Virginia Law, 1974-5, 61 Va.L. Rev. 1627 at 1711 (1975).
. This attempt of the plaintiff to limit his State appeals to State issues, reserving for federal review his federal claims, was similar to the action of the plaintiff in Scruggs v. Campbell, 630 F.2d 237 (4th Cir. 1980). Such procedure was plainly contrary to the language of the Supreme Court in Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 36 L.Ed.2d 488 (1973), as well as our ruling in Scruggs.
. Younger v. Harris, 401 U.S. 37, 91 S.Ct. 746, 27 L.Ed.2d 669 (1971); Byrne v. Karalexis, 401 U.S. 216, 91 S.Ct. 777, 27 L.Ed.2d 792 (1971); Dyson v. Stein, 401 U.S. 200, 91 S.Ct. 769, 27 L.Ed.2d 781 (1971); Perez v. Ledesoma, 401 U.S. 82, 91 S.Ct. 674, 27 L.Ed.2d 474 (1971); Samuels v. Mackell, 401 U.S. 66, 91 S.Ct. 764, 27 L.Ed.2d 688 (1971); Boyle v. Landry, 401 U.S. 77, 91 S.Ct. 758, 27 L.Ed.2d 696 (1971).
. This is the description applied to these cases in Note, Limiting the Younger Doctrine: A Critique and Proposal, 67 Cal.L.Rev. 1318, 1323 (1979). See also American Civil Liberties v. Bozardt, 539 F.2d 340, 342 (4th Cir. 1976).
. For the requirement that all claims, state and federal, must be presented to the state court under Younger, see Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 577, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 1697, 36 L.Ed.2d 488 (1973); American Civil Liberties Union v. Bozardt, supra, 539 F.2d 342; see also Laycock, Federal Interference with State Prosecutions: The Need for Prospective Relief, 1977 Supreme Court Review, 193, 196.
. Laycock, 1977 Supreme Court Review, at 196.
. Samuels v. Mackell, supra, 401 U.S. at 72-73, 91 S.Ct. at 767-68. In reaching this conclusion, the Court reasoned that a declaratory judgment “will result in precisely the same interference with and disruption of state proceedings” as would an injunction. This is true, it concluded, because a declaratory judgment would be considered “res judicata” in the state court, or because a declaratory judgment could serve as a basis for a subsequent injunction to “protect or effectuate” that declaratory judgment.
. 401 U.S. at 43-47, 91 S.Ct. at 750-52.
. 401 U.S. at 44, 91 S.Ct. at 750.
. See 401 U.S. at 45, 91 S.Ct. at 751:
“This brief discussion should be enough to suggest some of the reasons why it has been perfectly natural for our cases to repeat time and time again that the normal thing to do when federal courts are asked to enjoin pending proceedings in state courts is not to issue such injunctions.”
. Huffman v. Pursue, Ltd., 420 U.S. 592, 607, 95 S.Ct. 1200, 1209, 43 L.Ed.2d 482 (1975).
In his dissent in Juidice v. Vail, 430 U.S. 327, 344-45, 97 S.Ct. 1211, 1221-22, 51 L.Ed.2d 376 n (1977), Justice Brennan said:
“I suspect that the purported disclaimer that ‘[a]s we did in Huffman, we save for another day the question of “the applicability of Younger to all civil litigation ante, at 336 n. 13, 97 S.Ct. at 1218 n. 13, is tongue in cheek, and that ‘save’ in today’s disclaimer is a signal that merely the formal announcement is being postponed.”
This statement was offered in explanation of Justice Brennan’s opinion that the extension of Huffman’s “quasi-criminal” rationale to a state’s contempt powers in a suit between private parties was but a cover “for the ultimate goal of denying § 1983 plaintiffs the federal forum in any case, civil or criminal, when a pending state proceeding may hear the federal plaintiffs federal claims."
. 420 U.S. at 609-10, 95 S.Ct. at 1210-11.
. 430 U.S. at 334, 97 S.Ct. at 1216.
. Comment, Closing the Courthouse Door: The Expanding Rationale of Younger Abstention, 19 Boston College L.Rev. 699, 720-21 (1978).
. This case is analyzed in Note, Constitutional Law-Supreme Court Extends Younger Comity Doctrine, 46 Fordham L.Rev. 176 (1977), and in a Note, Federal Jurisdiction-Younger Doctrine Extended to Preclude Federal Court Intervention Where Parties have an Opportunity to Present Their Claim Within the State Civil Proceeding, 8 Cumberland L.Rev. 589 (1977).
. This case and Juidice are discussed together in the Comment, supra, 19 Boston College L.Rev. 699.
. This case is discussed in Comment, Moore v. Sims: A Further Expansion of the Younger Abstention Doctrine, 1 Pace L.Rev. 149 (1980), and in a Note in 49 Cinn.L.Rev. 301 (1980). In the latter note, the author observed that Justice Stevens had dissented because he considered “the state and federal suits were independent of one another. The state court action concerned the parent-child relationship, whereas the federal suit concerned the constitutionality of the child’s removal.” Ibid, at 308. The Court majority, however, seems to have found the two issues related and found that the federal plaintiffs had a right to' raise such issues in the state proceeding.
. Ohio Bureau of Employment Services v. Hodory, 431 U.S. 471, 479-80, 97 S.Ct. 1898, 1903-04 (Italics added).
. 475 F.Supp. at 1166.
. We followed substantially the same reasoning as did the Rucker Court in the recent case of North v. Budig, et al., 637 F.2d 246 (4th Cir. 1981).
. See Younger v. Harris, supra, 401 U.S. at 56, 91 S.Ct. at 755 (Stewart, J., concurring).
. 401 U.S. at 46, 91 S.Ct. at 751.
. See 19 Boston College Law Review, supra, at 721.
. This point was further underscored in Juid-ice, supra, 430 U.S. at 337, 97 S.Ct. at 1218, where the Court, in distinguishing Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L.Ed.2d 54 (1975) said that the issue in that case was “one” that “could not be raised in defense of the criminal prosecution.” It was, also a basis for our decision in the recent case of Anderson v. Babb, 632 F.2d 300 (4th Cir. 1980).
See also 1 Pace L.Rev., supra, at 165-66:
“In determining whether a particular case comes within the exceptions to the Younger doctrine, courts focus primarily on the adequacy of remedies available at law. Indeed, a finding of adequacy may obviate the need to consider the issue of irreparable harm; if an existing remedy is found to be adequate, that finding itself implies that any harm is repairable. Moreover, although Younger provides that irreparable harm can be inferred from bad faith and harassment, these circumstances can also be viewed as factors in measuring the adequacy of the state forum. The various exceptions to Younger, therefore, can be seen as ‘different ways of showing that the state legal apparatus has broken down so thoroughly that federal rights cannot be vindicated through it in a timely fashion.’ ”
. The difficulties of establishing this exception are illustrated by Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332 at 350-51, 95 S.Ct. 2281 at 2292, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1975); Kugler v. Helfant, supra, 421 U.S. at 124, 95 S.Ct. at 1530; Perez v. Ledesma, supra, 401 U.S. at 85, 91 S.Ct. at 676, in no one of which was the exception sustained.
In 67 Cal.L.Rev., supra, at 1328-29, the author, speaking to this exception, says:
“Since Younger, however, the Court has never allowed federal interference with a pending state proceeding on these grounds.
“This exception seems inconsistent with the principles underlying the Younger doctrine — i. e., that the state courts will normally protect federal rights, removing any threat of ‘irreparable injury’ that might justify federal injunctive relief. Unless the state court cannot be relied upon for full and fair adjudication of constitutional claims (an independent exception to the Younger doctrine), prosecutorial bad faith presents no threat of irreparable injury.”
. Gibson v. Berryhill, supra, 411 U.S. 564, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 36 L.Ed.2d 488; Timmerman v. Brown, 528 F.2d 811 (4th Cir. 1975).
. Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452, 94 S.Ct. 1209, 39 L.Ed.2d 505 (1974); Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 97 S.Ct. 1428, 51 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977).
. See Note 26.
. 420 U.S. at 602, 95 S.Ct. at 1207.
See also 19 Boston College L.Rev. supra, at 734-35, and 67 Cal.L.Rev. supra, at 1329.
. 430 U.S. at 338, 97 S.Ct. at 1218.
. Laycock, 1977 Supreme Court Review, supra, at 198; see also, Note. 19 Boston College L.Rev., supra, at 734-35.
. Aldisert, 11 Conn.L.Rev., supra, at 197.
. 410 U.S. at 126, 93 S.Ct. at 713. See also, Anders v. Floyd, 440 U.S. 445, 99 S.Ct. 1200, 59 L.Ed.2d 442 (1979), reh. denied, 441 U.S. 928, 99 S.Ct. 2043, 60 L.Ed.2d 403.
. That the two statutes (i. e., the abortion statute and the suspension statute) are related and are integrated parts of a common legislative scheme to prevent illegal abortions is evidenced by the fact that the plaintiff in his prayer for a declaratory judgment of unconstitutionality and in his request for injunctive relief lumps the two statutes together.
. Under § 9-6.14:17, Code of Virginia (1950) as amended, the plaintiff has the right on the judicial review before the state court of the Board of Medicine’s decision to raise the issue of error of law, which the state declares includes “constitutional right, power, privilege, or immunity,” language patently broad enough to include the plaintiffs objection to the statute on constitutional grounds. Actually, the plaintiffs constitutional objection to the statute, which is that his license was suspended without a hearing but subject to a right to a prompt hearing for revocation of that suspension, is one that we examined in Christhilf v. Annapolis Emergency Hospital Ass’n., Inc., supra, 496 F.2d 174. We held there that there is no absolute rule that there be a hearing before a doctor’s privileges are suspended. Ibid, at 180. Whether there could be a suspension without a hearing depends largely on the gravity of the charges and the nature of the proof. In this case, the charge was a violation of a criminal statute as established by a criminal conviction. That plainly can be said to meet the test for a suspension without a prior hearing, especially since the statute extends to the plaintiff a prompt hearing on the suspension if he requests it. See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 490, 92 S.Ct. 2593, 2604, 33 L.Ed.2d 484 (1972), where the Court said that in parole revocation, just as here in a suspension of a physician’s license to practice, the Court might proceed without an initial hearing if the revocation “is based on conviction of another crime” since the parolee “cannot relitigate issues determined against him in other forums.”
It is true that in subsequent proceedings the plaintiff was given relief in Christhilf but such relief was given because the defendants delayed for over three years the hearing on the plaintiffs earlier ex parte suspension, Christhilf v. Annapolis Emergency H. Ass’n Inc., 552 F.2d 1070 (4th Cir. 1977). We have no such situation here. The plaintiff in this case was given a prompt hearing before the Board on his request for revocation of his suspension and a decision on such request has been filed and is now on appeal to the state court.
. 420 U.S. at 610, 95 S.Ct. at 1211.
. 420 U.S. at 608, 95 S.Ct. at 1210.
. See paragraphs 30 through 67.