Source: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Webster_v._Reproductive_Health_Services
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 02:56:51+00:00

Document:
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490 (1989), was a United States Supreme Court decision upholding a Missouri law that imposed restrictions on the use of state funds, facilities and employees in performing, assisting with, or counseling on abortions. The Supreme Court in Webster allowed for states to legislate in an area that had previously been thought to be forbidden under Roe.
2. The restrictions in §§ 188.210 and 188.215 of the Missouri statute on the use of public employees and facilities for the performance or assistance of nontherapeutic abortions do not contravene this Court's abortion decisions. The Due Process Clauses generally confer no affirmative right to governmental aid, even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty, or property interests of which the government may not deprive the individual. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 196. Thus, in Maher v. Roe, supra; Poelker v. Doe, 432 U.S. 519; and Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, this Court upheld governmental regulations withholding public funds for nontherapeutic abortions but allowing payments for medical services related to childbirth, recognizing that a government's decision to favor childbirth over abortion through the allocation of public funds does not violate Roe v. Wade. A State may implement that same value judgment through the allocation of other public resources, such as hospitals and medical staff. There is no merit to the claim that Maher, Poelker, and McRae must be distinguished on the grounds that preventing access to a public facility narrows or forecloses the availability of abortion. Just as in those cases, Missouri's decision to use public facilities and employees to encourage childbirth over abortion places no governmental obstacle in the path of a woman who chooses to terminate her pregnancy, but leaves her with the same choices as if the State had decided not to operate any hospitals at all. The challenged provisions restrict her ability to obtain an abortion only to the extent that she chooses to use a physician affiliated with a public hospital. Also without merit is the assertion that [p492] Maher, Poelker, and McRae must be distinguished on the ground that, since the evidence shows that all of a public facility's costs in providing abortion services are recouped when the patient pays, such that no public funds are expended, the Missouri statute goes beyond expressing a preference for childbirth over abortion by creating an obstacle to the right to choose abortion that cannot stand absent a compelling state interest. Nothing in the Constitution requires States to enter or remain in the abortion business or entitles private physicians and their patients access to public facilities for the performance of abortions. Indeed, if the State does recoup all of its costs in performing abortions and no state subsidy, direct or indirect, is available, it is difficult to see how any procreational choice is burdened by the State's ban on the use of its facilities or employees for performing abortions. The cases in question all support the view that the State need not commit any resources to performing abortions, even if it can turn a profit by doing so. Pp. 507-511.

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