Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

U.S. Case Law

1. 491 U.S. 397 (1989), upheld a state law barring the use of public facilities or public employees to effect abortions, and required physicians to perform tests to determine the viability of any fetus believed to be at least 20 weeks old. The ruling upheld these restrictions as constitutional without overturning Roe v. Wade. In subsequent years the Court ruled that a state may require one parent to be notified when an unmarried minor seeks an abortion (Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S. 502 (1990)) but that the constitutional right to obtain an abortion remains the law of the land (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)). It further upheld as constitutional the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban of 2003, refuting a claim that the law was unconstitutionally vague, and finding that the prohibition on the specific method of abortion did not place an undue burden on a woman's right to an abortion (Gonzalez v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124 (2007)).