ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of the US Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113, that legalized abortion, a number of states tried to impose various restrictions limiting access to the procedure. In Maher v. Roe, 432 US 464, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court and sustained the Connecticut regulation. The Maher decision allowed states to choose whether or not to fund nontherapeutic abortions. Maher also represented the first of several limitations on abortion rights accepted by the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the Court upheld informed-consent rules, waiting periods, reporting requirements, conditional parental notification, and a congressional ban on using Medicaid money for abortion. The dissenters argued that the state's refusal to fund abortions for Medicaid patients was a serious interference with the right to abortion, since a right without the resources to exercise it was meaningless. The Connecticut regulation places no obstacles- absolute or otherwise-in the pregnant woman's path to abortion.
