| Maher v. Roe
(No. 75-1440)
408 F.Supp. 660, reversed and remanded. |
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ Powell ] | Concurrence
[ Burger ] | Dissent
[ Brennan ] |
| HTML version
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Maher v. Roe
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER, concurring.
I join the Court's opinion. Like the Court, I do not read any decision of this Court as requiring a State to finance a nontherapeutic abortion. The Court's holdings in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), simply require that a State not create an absolute barrier to a woman's decision to have an abortion. These precedents do not suggest that the State is constitutionally required to assist her in procuring it.
From time to time, every state legislature determines that, as a matter of sound public policy, the government ought to provide certain health and social services to its citizens. Encouragement of childbirth and child care is not a novel undertaking in this regard. Various governments, both in this country and in others, have made such a determination for centuries. In recent times, they have similarly provided educational services. The decision to provide any one of these services -- or not to provide them -- is not required by the Federal Constitution. Nor does the providing of a particular service require, as a matter of federal constitutional law, the provision of another.
Here, the State of Connecticut has determined that it will finance certain childbirth expenses. That legislative determination [p482] places no state-created barrier to a woman's choice to procure an abortion, and it does not require the State to provide it. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment.