Reproductive Health Services (RHS), a non-profit organization, brought this class action suit challenging the constitutionality of a Missouri law (the Act) regulating the performance of abortions. The Act did the following: Set forth, in the preamble, that the “life of each human being begins at conception,” and that “unborn children have protectable interests in life, …Read more

Section 251(4) of the Criminal Code of Canada (the Code) permitted abortions to be performed only at accredited hospitals and then with approval from the performing hospital’s therapeutic abortion committee. Drs. Morgentaler, Smoling, and Scott had together established an abortion clinic in Toronto to perform abortions not approved by a therapeutic abortion committee.  Following public …Read more

The Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) issued a memorandum of guidance to local health authorities that stated that, inter alia, “consultations between doctors and patients are confidential,” even for children less than 16. The memorandum noted that while “it would be most unusual,” a doctor could advise the child regarding contraception without parental …Read more

Mary Doe, under a pseudonym, was a married, twenty-two year old mother living in Georgia. At the time of this case, she already had three children, two in foster care and the third given up for adoption due to her inability to provide for them. She sought an abortion from the Grady Memorial Hospital Abortion …Read more