Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

Background

In 1986 Missouri passed a law with a preamble saying life begins at conception and several rules about abortion. It required doctors to determine fetal viability by testing before abortions after about 20 weeks, forbade public employees and public facilities from performing most nontherapeutic abortions, and limited use of public funds for abortion counseling. A group of state-employed health workers and two clinics sued. A federal trial court and then the Court of Appeals invalidated several provisions. The Supreme Court took the case.

Reasoning

The core question was whether Missouri’s rules violated the constitutional right to choose established in earlier cases. The Court’s majority reversed the Court of Appeals. It declined to rule finally on the preamble, held the ban on using public employees and public facilities for most abortions constitutional (relying on past funding and subsidy cases), and found that the testing law can be read to require only medically appropriate tests useful to determine viability and therefore is constitutional. The Court directed dismissal of the challenge to the ban on public funds for counseling as moot. Justice O’Connor joined the judgment but favored a narrow reading of the testing requirement.

Real world impact

The decision lets Missouri bar most abortions in public hospitals and by public employees and permits some testing before later abortions to confirm viability. The decision leaves earlier national abortion rulings in place but signals courts and legislatures may allow targeted state regulations.

Dissents or concurrances

Several Justices disagreed. Justice Blackmun warned the majority’s approach weakens established abortion protections. Justice Stevens said the testing rule and the religious preamble are unconstitutional. Justice Scalia would have overruled earlier abortion decisions.