Rust v. Sullivan

Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case decided in 1991. The case concerned the legality and constitutionality of Department of Health and Human Services regulations on the use of funds spent by the U.S. federal government to promote family planning. With Title X of the Public Health Service Act, Congress prohibited the funds from being "used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning." In 1988, the Republican-appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services issued new regulations that prohibited projects receiving these funds from not only providing abortions, but also counseling, advising, or promoting the idea that a woman seek an abortion. These regulations were challenged on the grounds that they were not permissibly within the scope of the statute and that they violated the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

In its decision, the Court ruled that the regulations did not violate the legislation in question or the Constitution. Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the majority in finding that the regulations were a permissible construction of statutory law, that they do not violate the First Amendment free speech rights of the recipients, and that they do not violate the Fifth Amendment right of women to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy as established in Roe v. Wade.

One attorney for the government in this case was John Roberts, then Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. A brief for the case, of which Roberts was a coauthor, argued for overruling Roe:

"'We continue to believe that [Roe v. Wade] was wrongly decided and should be overruled. As more fully explained in our briefs, filed as amicus curiae, in Hodgson v. Minnesota, 110 S. Ct. 2926 (1990); Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 109 S. Ct. 3040 (1989); Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747 (1986); and City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 U.S. 416 (1983), the Court's conclusions in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion and that government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy find no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.'"

The brief in question lists the following authors: Michael J. Astrue, General Counsel; Joel Mangel, Deputy Chief Counsel; Carol C. Conrad, Attorney, Department of Health and Human Services; Kenneth W. Starr, Solicitor General; Stuart M. Gerson, Assistant Attorney General; John G. Roberts, Jr., Deputy Solicitor General; Jeffrey P. Minear, Assistant to the Solicitor General; Anthony J. Steinmeyer, Lowell v. Sturgill, Jr., Attorneys. With Roberts's nomination to the Supreme Court in 2005, the positions he advocated at the time have come under increased scrutiny, particularly as they related to the emotional issues surrounding abortion.

External link
Full Text of Rust v. Sullivan from Justia.com