relating to encouraging or counseling a woman to have an abortion. The first stated that no public funds could be used for this purpose. The second stated that public employees, within the scope of their employment, could not engage in such speech. The third stated that such speech in public facilities was prohibited. The Court of Appeals had held all three provisions to be unconstitutionally vague. The Supreme Court rejected this holding.
In part, Rehnquist used Roe v. Wade itself in making this decision, noting that Roe v. Wade had recognized that the State had important and legitimate interests in protecting maternal health and in the potentiality of human life, and Rehnquist sees the provisions of the Missouri statute as acceptable exercises of these same state interests. Rehnquist also finds that the Missouri case differs in important ways from Roe, which was why the Court declined to use it as a means of overturning Roe. For one th
...