Webster v. Reproductive Health Service COURTNEY HARRIS better-and-then-they-got-worse/

Defendant William Webster (Missouri State Attorney General) /

Plaintiff Reproductive Health Services in Missouri anniversary/

Background  Anti-abortion activists became stronger after Roe v. Wade  Began to cut off state funding for abortion  Supreme Court composition changed giving more support to those pro-life  State of Missouri enacted statue that restricted abortions  Act was challenged in US District Court for the Western District of Missouri by five health professionals employed by the state and two nonprofit organizations

The case  Case led by Chief Justice Rehnquist  Proposed an opinion that would “uphold Missouri law and implicitly but not explicitly overrule Roe.”  Indicted a proposal of replacing the “trimester framework” found in Roe v. Wade with a standard that would allow any state to regulate abortion if it was in the state’s interest of fetal life  This strategy failed because it would allow any regulation of abortion

 William L. Webster argued the case for Missouri as attorney general.  He faced Frank Susman, an attorney for Planned Parenthood.  Susman argued that the right to abortion was upheld under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, which protects personal liberty.  Webster argued that the provisions were in fact constitutional.

Ruling  Split the nine Supreme Court decisions  On the day of the ruling, Chief Justice Rehnquist announced the Supreme Court’s decision favoring the state of Missouri with 5-4  This decision agreed with Missouri’s stating that abortion was not in fact a liberty covered in the Fourteenth Amendment or protected in the Due Process Clause. health-services/

Opinions  The majority opinion believed that the limitation of medical tests at twenty weeks to determine viability, crossed the lines on abortion that the Roe v. Wade case had drawn.  The Supreme Court however did not call this unconstitutional.  The preamble was not actually include in the legal text and therefore could not be upheld.  The Supreme Court’s decision went against the decision of Roe v. Wade but it however, did not directly change it.

Opinions cont.  Of the two dissenting opinions, Justice Blackmun was the most rigorous. He wrote a dissent in defense of Roe v. Wade, accusing the Court of attempting to “erode Roe.”  The decision of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services limited abortion rights without defining any of those limits.  State legislatures were left the task to draft statues regarding their abortion rights  This would allow for future statues to pass constitutional scrutiny. Defining the right to privacy would begin to be a strong political discussion which would be continued to be seen in the twenty-first century

My opinion Webster v. Reproductive Health Services allowed for states to regulate the right to abortion but it undermined the original case. Therefore, it allows for leeway to be brought forward in regards to a person’s right to privacy, in this case being a woman’s right to abortion. It should not be up to individuals to regulate a right that is adamantly stated for what it is. The case of Webster should have either been accepted or denied, leeway only makes defining a right which was previously given much harder.

Sergey, Tokarev. n.d. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 US 490 (1989). Accessed December 2, Unknown. n.d. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. Accessed December 2, —. n.d. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. Accessed December 2, —. n.d. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services Accessed December 2, —. n.d. Webster v. Reproductive Health Services Accessed December 2,