Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1995
Abstract
Part I of this article discusses the Court's opinions in Rust and Casey. It first demonstrates that the driving force in both decisions was the Court's characterization of abortion counseling as an activity rather than as speech. Part I further discusses the speech/conduct distinction in First Amendment jurisprudence and demonstrates that abortion counseling falls on the speech side of that distinction. Parts II and III suggest that the real cause of the conflation of speech and conduct in Rust and Casey was the confluence of (1) the reemergence of reasoning found in a curious commercial speech decision -- Posadas de Puerto Rico Associates v. Tourism Company and (2) the Court's rapidly changing view of a woman's constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.
Recommended Citation
Christina E. Wells, Abortion Counseling As Vice Activity: The Free Speech Implications of Rust v. Sullivan and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 95 Colum. L. Rev. 1724 (1995)