1991 overturn the Gag Rule now.

As a result of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, we are one step closer to the end of safe and legal abortion in the United States. We are one step closer to government-approved censorship of freedom of speech. We are one step closer to the government's abridgement of our sexual rights.

In May 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the administration's Gag Rule restrictions on federally funded clinics. Clients at federally funded clinics will no longer be able to receive unbiased pregnancy options counseling. A pregnant woman who asks about abortion will only be told that the clinic does not consider abortion a method of family planning. Clinicians will not be able to refer women, even if there is a medical emergency, to a facility that performs abortion.

The Court in a 5-4 ruling said that the regulations did not violate the First Amendment rights of the clinicians or the right to choose abortion. In the decision, written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and joined by Justices Kennedy, Scalia, Souter, and White, the Court said that the government has no obligation to pay for the exercise of constitutional rights. The Court said that women have no right to expect that they will receive comprehensive medical advice in a family planning clinic. Further, they completely ignored the fact that the regulation prohibits Title X clinics from referring their clients to sources for unbiased counseling, including their own privately funded services. We believe that this is the first time that the Court has ruled that speech can be abridged if federal funds are received.

Justice Harry Blackmun was joined in his dissent by Justices Marshal, O'Connor, and Stevens. Justice Blackmun wrote, "by manipulating the content of the doctor/patient dialogue, the regulations upheld today force each of the petitioners to be an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view." Furthermore, he said, "In its haste to restrict the right of every woman to control her reproductive freedom and bodily integrity, the majority disregards established principles of law."

The potential short- and long-term impacts of this decision are disastrous. Censorship is being imposed on clinicians, and low-income women and teenagers are being denied their reproductive rights. Title X clinics around the country are now faced with the choice of refusing federal funds and of cutting services to low-income women, or of providing biased and incomplete information to their pregnancy clients.

It is clear to me that the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is on its way to being overturned. At least two state laws, Pennsylvania and Guam, are in the judicial pipeline to be heard next term. Both would give the Court the opportunity to overrule the Roe decision.

In June, the Louisiana legislature overturned Governor Buddy Roemer's veto of the most restrictive abortion law in the country. Unless there is judicial action, by the end of this summer almost all abortions in Louisiana will be illegal, with physicians and counselors facing criminal penalties. This law is also likely to provide the Supreme Court with a test case. Justice David Souter has demonstrated that he is not a supporter of reproductive rights. Justice Thurgood Marshall's resignation is surely another blow to reproductive rights. I fear that abortion will not longer be a constitutionally protected right by 1993, and that we will return to a time when women in some states were able to choose abortion, but women in most were not....

Excerpted from SIECUS Report, Volume 19, Number 5, June/July 1991.