Opinion ID: 746244
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Intrastate Activity Proscribed by the Act Affects the

Text: 50 Availability of Abortion-Related Services in the National Market 51 We are persuaded that it is a fair inference that the activity proscribed by the Act--which has (or threatens to have) the effect of precluding access to abortion-related services in the area served by the targeted clinic--can have a substantial affect on the availability of abortion-related services in the national market. Such a conclusion is rational and supported by testimony presented to the committees charged with reviewing the bills that eventually became the Act. 52 The House Subcommittee on Crime and Criminal Justice heard testimony that, because of the continued threats of violence and disruptive activities, abortion clinics have been forced to implement heightened security measures to ensure access. House Hearings, at 25 (statement of Susan Hill, President, Nat'l Women's Health Org.) (noting that [o]bviously, that drives up the costs of providing the service). The Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources considered a report printed in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology which noted that abortion clinic violence increases the costs of abortion services at those clinics that remain open. The report stated that abortion patients have been forced, due to clinic violence, to seek other providers or postpone care. Senate Hearings, at 54. Additional testimony before the Senate Committee set forth the Commerce Clause rationale for the Act's regulation of intrastate activities to ensure the availability of abortion-related services in the national market: 53 The pattern of interstate effects produced by the pressured movement of women from State to State under a variegated patchwork of local enforcement against blockades, violence and physical intimidation at abortion clinics is undoubtedly sufficient to warrant Congress's invocation of its commerce power. Similarly, the shift of demand for abortion services from those areas where clinic access is obstructed to those areas where it is not represents the sort of interstate economic effect that is beyond the effective control of any one State and is accordingly a proper subject for congressional regulation under the Commerce Clause. Id. at 97 (statement of Professor Tribe) (citing Summit Health, Ltd. v. Pinhas, 500 U.S. 322, 327-31, 111 S.Ct. 1842, 1846-47, 114 L.Ed.2d 366 (1991)). 54 This described shift in demand from obstructed clinics to unobstructed clinics--given the national scarcity of abortion-related services--supports the legitimacy of Congress's enactment of section 248(a). The patent congressional concern that the activity proscribed by the Act, although intrastate, could have a deleterious impact on the availability of abortion-related services in the national market, makes clear that Congress was addressing an interstate problem rather than a multistate, intrastate problem. Wilson, 73 F.3d at 683. 55 Accordingly, in light of the evident congressional purpose to ensure the availability of abortion-related services in the national commercial market, 15 we hold that the enactment of section 248(a), as applied to the facts of the present case, was a constitutional exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. Because we conclude that Congress possessed the requisite authority under the Commerce Clause, we pretermit the substantially more questionable assertion of congressional authority to criminalize purely private conduct (not directed at state property or facilities) under Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment. See The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S.Ct. 18, 27 L.Ed. 835 (1883). See also City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, ----, 117 S.Ct. 2157, 2166, 138 L.Ed.2d 624 (1997). 16 56