Reading Room Document

Proposed Federal Abortion Legislation

The proposed legislation would enact a federal statutory regime of abortion regulation that leaves the States with substantially less regulatory authority than they have under Roe v. Wade or Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The proposed legislation would represent a doubtful exercise of Congress' power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment and would rest on a questionable link to Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/20551/download.

July 1, 1992