Court Opinion

ID: 9544603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:57:35.851872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:16.650401
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent. The consequences of the majority’s extended legal analysis may be reduced to a simple proposition: The State of California and its taxpayers are constitutionally compelled to pay for the abortions of all Medi-Cal recipients who desire them. The highest court in the land has twice held directly to the contrary. No matter. Accepting as valid the very arguments which failed to persuade the Legislature, and disregarding all deference to a coequal branch of government, the majority reaches its conclusion relying on the now familiar “independent state grounds” and on the right of “privacy” embodied in the California Constitution in 1972. As I develop below, in my view this is very dubious reasoning. Before today I had thought that it was very well settled that it was the Legislature, not the courts, which had the ultimate authority to select those benefits and services to be included in a public welfare program.
The majority’s thesis is that the Legislature’s decision to give public monetary assistance to welfare mothers for their childbirth expenses thereby violates the constitutional rights of mothers who prefer to abort their child. By funding the childbirth of some women, it is contended that the state “forces” other indigent women to forego their constitutional right to abort. I suggest that such distorted logic defies constitutional analysis and makes no sense. The Legislature’s decision to pay for the expenses of childbirth may make birth a more financially attractive alternative than an abortion, but such a decision no more *298“forces” women to give up abortion than funding the purchase of false teeth forces one to give up toothbrushes.
The majority indulges in semantic legerdemain, phrasing the issue in terms of the “right to procreative choice,” thus broadening the question to permit its argument. It is essential that we remain very clear on what this case is not about. The issue is not whether a woman’s constitutional right to abort may be exercised without undue governmental interference (Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113 [35 L.Ed.2d 147, 93 S.Ct. 705]) or whether women have a right to an abortion. They do. The essential question before us is whether they have a right to abort free of charge and at taxpayer expense. As I will develop, these two questions involve vastly different considerations.
The majority relies primarily upon a line of cases which is wholly in-apposite to the issue before us. (See Parrish v. Civil Service Commission (1967) 66 Cal.2d 260 [57 Cal.Rptr. 623, 425 P.2d 223]; Bagley v. Washington Township Hospital Dist. (1966) 65 Cal.2d 499 [55 Cal.Rptr. 401, 421 P.2d 409]; Danskin v. San Diego Unified Sch. Dist. (1946) 28 Cal.2d. 536 [171 P.2d 885].) It is not surprising that, using a 13-inch ruler as a constitutional measure for the challenged legislation, the majority reaches such an erroneous result.
Thus, in Danskin the state improperly required loyalty oaths from those persons who sought permission to use school buildings for their meetings. We held that although the state had no duty to make school buildings available for public meetings, nevertheless, if it elected to do so, it could neither arbitrarily select among permitted users nor impose unconstitutional conditions upon that use. (28 Cal.2d at pp. 545-546.) Application of this Danskin principle to the case before us would result in prohibiting the state from the arbitrary extension of either childbirth or abortion benefits to some but not all recipients or, alternatively, the conditioning of the receipt of such benefits upon the waiver of some constitutional right. Nothing remotely resembling such selective or coercive conduct is involved in the case before us. Contrary to the majority’s claim of “discriminatory governmental treatment” (ante, p. 256), childbirth benefits are available to everyone on a nondiscriminatory basis. Such benefits are not conditioned upon the waiver of the right to abort, for that decision remains the untrammelled and voluntary choice of each aid recipient. Similarly, the limited abortion benefits which are offered by Medi-Cal are available to everyone meeting the *299objective criteria prescribed in the legislation. (See id., at p. 259, fn. 1.) The majority makes no attempt to demonstrate the arbitrariness of any of these criteria. How then can Danskin support the majority’s holding herein?
Bagley is wholly inapposite. In that case, a hospital district attempted to discharge an employee because of her political activities involving district board elections. In Bagley, we established strict standards for measuring the propriety of governmental restrictions upon the exercise of constitutional rights as a condition to public employment. (65 Cal.2d at pp. 505-507.) The Bagley rationale is not relevant to our consideration of the present case. Its “three-part test” so readily borrowed by the majority is plainly ill-suited for the analytical task before us. As previously noted, the legislative action in the present case imposes no conditions whatever upon the right of particular recipients of available benefits. In contrast, the Bagley employee was told to forego her political rights if she wished to remain employed. No similar demands or conditions are imposed upon the beneficiaries which the Legislature has selected for inclusion in the Medi-Cal program. In short, the Bagley tripartite test measures the validity of conditions imposed upon the receipt of public benefits. The test is wholly inappropriate to measure the constitutional adequacy of the benefits so provided, which is the only issue before us in this case.
The third principal case, Parrish, is no closer on point than either Bagley or Danskin. The Parrish welfare recipients were required to consent to predawn eligibility searches as a condition to the receipt of public aid. We there applied the Bagley standards and concluded that this conditional intrusion on constitutional rights was unjustified and improper. In contrast, the present case presents no such similar conditions upon the right to receive the kinds of aid which were funded by the Legislature. With due respect, I must suggest that the majority’s attempt to find refuge in such weak precedents graphically illustrates the poverty of its argument.
The cases on which the majority relies involve the imposition of unconstitutional conditions upon the receipt of public benefits. This is entirely different from the problem herein presented. Yet, relevant precedent is not lacking. It simply will not support the result which the majority obviously struggles to achieve.
*300Two very recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court are directly in point. The high court decided identical issues in Harris v. McRae (1980) 448 U.S. 297 [65 L.Ed.2d 784, 100 S.Ct. 2671], and Maher v. Roe (1977) 432 U.S. 464, 471-474 [53 L.Ed.2d 484, 492-495, 97 S.Ct. 2376], with results diametrically opposite to those achieved by the majority here. In each case the Supreme Court sustained budgetary restrictions upon aid for abortions. The Maher court upheld a Connecticut welfare regulation which, as here, provided benefits for medical services incident to childbirth but denied those which related to non-therapeutic abortions. In Harris, the Supreme Court upheld the federal “Medicaid” Act and the so-called “Hyde Amendment” thereto which in combined effect denied public funding for some medically necessary abortions. In both cases the high tribunal rejected several constitutional arguments raised against these funding restrictions which are identical to those adopted by the majority, including challenges based on privacy, due process and equal protection principles. The majority herein chooses to ignore the rationale of the highest court in the land which deals specifically with the precise issues presented to us.
The primary issue in Maher was whether restrictions upon state aid for nontherapeutic abortions impermissibly infringed upon the rights of privacy or “freedom of choice” which the Supreme Court described in Roe v. Wade, supra, 410 U.S. 113. The Maher court observed that although its Roe holding “protects the woman from unduly burdensome interference with her freedom to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy” (432 U.S., at pp. 473-474 [53 L.Ed.2d at p. 494]) such a decision does not prevent the state from making “a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion, and .. . implementing] that judgment by the allocation of public funds.” (Id., at p. 474 [53 L.Ed.2d at p. 494].) In its further amplification in Maher the United States Supreme Court spoke directly, and with compelling authority, to the precise point which is before us, explaining: “The Connecticut regulation before us is different in kind from the laws invalidated in our previous abortions decisions. The Connecticut [one may substitute California] regulation places no obstacles—absolute or otherwise—in the pregnant woman’s path to an abortion. An indigent woman who desires an abortion suffers no disadvantage as a consequence of Connecticut’s decision to fund childbirth; she continues as before to be dependent on private sources for the service she desires. The State may have made childbirth a more attractive alternative, thereby influencing the woman’s decision, but it has imposed no restriction on access to abortions *301that was not already there. The indigency that may make it difficult— and in some cases, perhaps, impossible—for some women to have abortions is neither created nor in any way affected by the Connecticut regulation.” (Id., at p. 474 [53 L.Ed.2d at pp. 494-495], italics added.) This reasoning, in my view, is directly applicable to the present case. It is also unanswerable. The California Legislature may constitutionally make “a value judgment favoring childbirth over abortion and ... implement that judgment by the allocation of public funds.” (Ibid.) Such a choice may be sociologically unwise but it is not constitutionally illegal.
Last year in Harris the high tribunal again focused its attention on the precise issue before us, and flatly rejected the constitutional analysis advanced by the majority that “a woman’s freedom of choice carries with it a constitutional entitlement to the financial resources to avail herself of the full range of protected choices. The reason why was explained in Maher: although government may not place obstacles in the path of a woman’s exercise of her freedom of choice, it need not remove those not of its own creation. Indigency falls in the latter category. The financial constraints that restrict an indigent woman’s ability to enjoy the full range of constitutionally protected freedom of choice are the product not of governmental restrictions on access to abortions, but rather of her indigency. Although Congress has opted to subsidize medically necessary services generally, but not certain medically necessary abortions, the fact remains that the Hyde Amendment leaves an indigent woman with at least the same range of choice in deciding whether to obtain a medically necessary abortion as she would have had if Congress had chosen to subsidize no health care costs at all. We are thus not persuaded that the Hyde Amendment impinges on the constitutionally protected freedom of choice recognized in Wade.” (448 U.S. at pp. 316-317 [65 L.Ed.2d at p. 804, 100 S.Ct. at p. 2688], fn. omitted.)
In similar fashion, the Supreme Court disposed of the due process argument, holding that there is no Fifth Amendment affirmative entitlement to government funds necessary to “realize all the advantages of that freedom” recognized by Roe v. Wade (pp. 317-318 [65 L.Ed.2d at p. 805, 100 S.Ct. at pp. 2688-2689]).
Finally, Harris rejected the reasoning of the majority that the funding restrictions violated equal protection principles by providing medically necessary services other than abortions. (Pp. 321-327 [65 L. *302Ed.2d at pp. 807-811, 100 S.Ct. at pp. 2690-2693].) The high court noted that although the impact of the federal law falls upon the indigent, prior decisions had repeatedly held that poverty, standing alone, is not a suspect classification which would invoke the strict scrutiny form of analysis. (448 U.S. at pp. 322-323 [65 L.Ed.2d at pp. 808-809, 100 S.Ct. at p. 2691].)
Applying this traditional rational basis test to determine whether the federal restrictions bore such a “relationship to its legitimate interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus” (p. 324 [65 L.Ed.2d at p. 809, 100 S.Ct. at pp. 2691-2692]), the Supreme Court found such a rational basis in the state’s interest in protecting the potentiality of human life. The high tribunal observed: “By subsidizing the medical expenses of indigent women who carry their pregnancies to term while not subsidizing the comparable expenses of women who undergo abortions (except those whose lives are threatened), Congress has established incentives that make childbirth a more attractive alternative than abortion for persons eligible for Medicaid. These incentives bear a direct relationship to the legitimate congressional interest in protecting potential life. Nor is it irrational that Congress has authorized federal reimbursement for medically necessary services generally, but not for certain medically necessary abortions. Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures, because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life. [U] Where, as here, the Congress has neither invaded a substantive constitutional right or freedom, nor enacted legislation that purposefully operates to the detriment of a suspect class, the only requirement of equal protection is that congressional action be rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest. The Hyde Amendment satisfies that standard.” (Pp. 325-326 [65 L.Ed.2d at p. 810, 100 S.Ct. at pp. 2692-2693], fns. omitted.)
The majority questions the propriety of the California Legislature’s interest in promoting childbirth and protecting potential life in the course of applying its inapposite Bagley “three-pronged test.” Contrary to the high court analysis in Maher and Harris, the majority bases its holding on the faulty premise that California must somehow demonstrate not only that its foregoing interests might be fostered by the funding restriction but that they inevitably must be so fostered, and in addition, in a manner “least offensive” to the aid recipient’s “right of procreative choice.” (E.g., pp. 281, 282.) The majority’s test is not only unduly strict in its evaluation of California’s legitimate interests, but the majority’s reasoning is wholly circular, entirely begging the question *303whether, indeed, there exists a right to choose between childbirth and a free abortion performed at state expense.
The California Legislature could reasonably believe that if free abortions “on demand” were unavailable, some women would elect to bear their children which would thereby promote the legitimate goals of encouraging childbirth and protecting fetal life. We cannot assume that the California Legislature is less protective of potential life than is the United States Congress. The Legislature also could assume that other women, no longer able to obtain abortions paid for by the taxpayers, might be encouraged before conception to discover and practice more effective birth control methods, thereby reducing to a considerable degree public welfare expenditures.
Thus, while the majority compares the cost of abortions with the cost of child bearing (ante, p. 277), it disregards a third “procreative choice” available to the indigent woman who prefers not to bear a child: use of effective contraception. Numerous birth control methods and techniques of varying degrees of effectiveness are available as alternatives to either pregnancy or abortion. Recognizing of course that no present method is infallible, I suggest that the majority errs in its assumption that “when the state finances the costs of childbirth, but will not finance the termination of pregnancy, it realistically forces the indigent woman to choose childbirth . .. .” (Ante, p. 285.) Instead, the Legislature may well have wished to encourage a “procreative choice” at an earlier stage by promoting the use of voluntary birth control.
The principal flaw, however, which runs throughout the entirety of the majority’s theory is the erroneous assumption that if a woman has a constitutional right of “freedom of choice” in the matter of whether or not to bear her child it necessarily follows that the State of California and its taxpayers must pay for the costs of the exercise of that right. Fortunately, that sweeping generalization is not so, and never has been so in our constitutional history. A citizen clearly has a constitutional right to travel where and when he pleases. I have never heard it suggested that he is constitutionally entitled to a free trip to the Bahamas paid for from the public treasury. Every citizen has a constitutional right to vote, but he has no constitutional right to a free taxi ride to the polling place. Every citizen may run for public office, but I know of no case holding that he has a constitutional right to public funds to help him get elected. He has a constitutional right to express his views on *304public affairs, but he has no constitutional right to a free mailing of his views, or a free hall paid for by the taxpayers within which he may expound them. Even when, by a divided court, we recently recognized a right of representation for incarcerated indigent civil defendants we very carefully abstained from recognizing that such a right constituted any enforceable claim against the public treasury for the payment of such representation. (Payne v. Superior Court (1976) 17 Cal.3d 908, 920, fn. 6 [132 Cal.Rptr. 405, 553 P.2d 565].) In short, the recognition of constitutional rights does not carry with it any corollary constitutional obligation on the state Legislature to furnish, out of public funds, the full and unrestricted implementation of those rights. This fact is unaffected by the majority’s effort to cast the issue in the form of a “protection of either procreative choice.” (Ante, p. 256.)
Finally, I think it very doubtful that when the people of California in 1972 approved the Legislature’s proposed constitutional amendment adding the “right of privacy” to the list of inalienable rights, they thought they were committing themselves to the payment of free abortions. There is nothing whatever in the history of the initiative to suggest such a bizarre result. Rather, when they added the “right of privacy” to their “inalienable rights” the people were told that the right of privacy “prevents government and business interests from collecting and stockpiling necessary information gathered for one purpose in order to serve other purposes or to embarrass us.
“Fundamental to our privacy is the ability to control circulation of personal information .... The proliferation of government and business records over which we have no control limits our ability to control our personal lives. Often we do not know that these records even exist and we are certainly unable to determine who has access to them.
“Even more dangerous is the loss of control over the accuracy of government and business records on individuals.
“The average citizen also does not have control over what information is collected about him. Much is secretly collected. We are required to report some information, regardless of our wishes for privacy or our belief that there is no public need for the information. Each time we apply for a credit card, or a life insurance policy, file a tax return, *305interview for a job, or get a drivers license, a dossier is opened and an informational profile is sketched. Modern technology is capable of monitoring, centralizing and computerizing this information which eliminates any possibility of individual privacy.” (Ballot Pamp., Proposed Amends. to Cal. Const. with arguments to voters, Gen. Elec. (Nov. 7, 1972) p. 27.)
The foregoing extracts from the ballot arguments persuade me that when the people in 1972 adopted the constitutional “privacy” measure they thought they were approving restrictions on the dissemination of record information affecting and intruding upon their personal lives. This is the whole spirit of the ballot argument. It may have had wider constitutional implications, but there is nothing in the history of the amendment to suggest that the people intended to create a constitutionally protected right that was broader than the federal right of privacy declared in Roe v. Wade, supra. Certainly, the people did not intend to extend “privacy” to encompass a constitutional access to the public treasury for all indigents who want free abortions. Such a speculative jump in reasoning is of Olympian proportions—from a restriction on information distribution to a constitutional obligation to pay for abortions. With due deference, I suggest that such a consequence is the pure invention of the majority and not constitutionally ordained by any California “right of privacy.”
It is the exclusive legislative prerogative, and not ours, to determine how public monies shall be appropriated, and for what purposes. The United States Supreme Court in disposing of the identical arguments adopted by the majority herein has explicitly held “[n]or is it irrational that Congress has authorized federal reimbursement for medically necessary services generally, but not for certain medically necessary abortions.” (448 U.S. at p. 325 [65 L.Ed.2d at p. 810, 100 S.Ct. at p. 2692].) The same constitutional considerations which moved the high court to defer to congressional judgment should similarly prompt us to accept the judgment of the California Legislature in its adoption of the Budget Act. The California Constitution prohibits us from rewriting the Budget Act, which budget, it bears repeating, is the Governor’s responsibility to propose and the Legislature’s to adopt. We seriously err when we continue, on misguided constitutional grounds, to usurp the lawmaking function of the California Legislature.
*306I would affirm the judgment in S.F. 24069, and deny the peremptory writs sought in S.F. 24053 and S.F. 24192.
Clark, J., concurred.
Respondents’ petition for a rehearing was denied April 29, 1981. Richardson, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.