Facts
- Missouri enacted a 1986 abortion statute with a preamble stating that human life begins at conception and that unborn children have protectable interests.
- The statute directed that state laws be interpreted to give unborn children rights comparable to other persons, subject to federal constitutional limits.
- The statute barred use of public facilities and public employees to perform or assist abortions not necessary to save the mother’s life.
- The statute made it unlawful to use public funds, employees, or facilities to encourage or counsel a woman to have a non-life-saving abortion.
- The statute required physicians, when they had reason to believe a المرأة was at least 20 weeks pregnant, to perform medical examinations and tests to determine gestational age, weight, and lung maturity to assess fetal viability.
- State-employed health professionals and private nonprofit abortion providers sued state officials for declaratory and injunctive relief.
- The district court invalidated the preamble and key provisions and enjoined enforcement; the court of appeals affirmed.
- The Supreme Court reversed and upheld the challenged provisions in relevant part.
Issues
- Whether the statute’s preamble and interpretive directive presented a justiciable constitutional dispute affecting abortion rights.
- Whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to provide or make available public facilities, employees, or funds to perform abortions.
- Whether the prohibition on using public resources to encourage or counsel abortion was reviewable on the record presented.
- Whether a requirement of viability testing when a physician has reason to believe pregnancy has reached 20 weeks is facially inconsistent with constitutional limits on pre-viability abortion regulation.
Decision
- The Court reversed the judgment invalidating the challenged provisions and upheld Missouri’s restrictions to the extent reviewed.
- The Court held the preamble did not itself regulate abortion or medical practice and therefore did not require constitutional adjudication on the record presented.
- The Court upheld the prohibition on using public facilities and employees for abortions not necessary to save the mother’s life, reasoning that the Constitution does not impose an affirmative duty on the state to provide or facilitate abortions.
- The Court declined to reach the constitutionality of the counseling/encouragement restriction, finding no sufficient case or controversy shown in the record.
- The Court upheld the 20-week viability-testing requirement as not facially inconsistent with governing abortion precedent, characterizing it as a diagnostic requirement rather than a ban.
- The controlling opinion emphasized that the Court was not formally overruling Roe v. Wade, though parts of the reasoning questioned Roe’s framework.
Legal Principles
- A state’s decision not to allocate public facilities, employees, or other resources to perform non-life-saving abortions is not, by itself, an unconstitutional obstacle to abortion access.
- The Due Process Clause generally does not create an affirmative entitlement to governmental aid to exercise a constitutional liberty interest.
- A statutory preamble expressing a state view about when life begins does not necessarily create a justiciable constitutional issue absent operative regulatory effect.
- Courts will not decide the constitutionality of a statutory provision without an actual case or controversy demonstrating concrete application or threat of enforcement.
- The state has a legitimate interest in potential life throughout pregnancy, and certain pre-viability requirements (such as testing tied to a physician’s reason to believe gestation has reached a specified point) may be upheld if they do not facially prohibit pre-viability abortions.
Conclusion
The Court sustained Missouri’s restrictions on using public facilities and personnel for non-life-saving abortions and upheld a 20-week viability-testing requirement, treated the statute’s preamble as nonjusticiable on the record, and declined to review the counseling restriction for lack of a demonstrated live controversy, while stating it was not overruling Roe.