Poelker v. Doe - Significance, Another Reversal, Complicated Issues

louis roe petitioners william

Petitioners

John H. Poelker, et al.

Respondents

Jane Doe, et al.

Petitioners' Claim

That the city of St. Louis, in electing as a policy choice to provide publicly financed hospital services for childbirth but not for nontherapeutic abortions, did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner

Eugene P. Freeman

Chief Lawyer for Respondent

Frank Susman

Justices for the Court

Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White

Justices Dissenting

Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

20 June 1977

Decision

Upheld that the city of St. Louis did not violate Fourteenth Amendment equal protection, thereby reversing the judgement of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Related Cases

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965).
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).
Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973).
Wulff v. Singleton, 428 U.S. 106 (1976).
Maher v. Roe, 432 U.S. 464 (1977).
Bellotti v. Baird, 443 U.S. 622 (1979).

Poelker v. Doe - Significance

The ruling specified that a hospital was allowed to refuse the performance of abortions based on hospital policy that was not influenced by city officials. However, this ruling also brought to light a certain form of discrimination caused by policies of this type that affected indigent mothers who wished to have abortions but could not afford to pay for them at private clinics. In the Roe v. Wade …

Poelker v. Doe - Another Reversal

While the Supreme Court agreed that the constitutional question concerning discrimination presented in Poelker v. Doe was identical in principle to that represented by a state's denial of Medicaid benefits for abortions while providing them for childbirth, they still found grounds to reverse the decision made by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Key to this decision was the manner in wh…

Poelker v. Doe - Complicated Issues

Justices Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun dissented, stating that the city of St. Louis infringed on the constitutional rights of indigent women by providing physicians and medical facilities for maternity care, but not offering the same for indigent women who exercise their constitutionally protected right to abortion. This situation posed what they termed as a "significant, and in some cases insur…

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