Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc.

Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 28, 1994 Decided June 30, 1994
Full case name	Judy Madsen, et al. v. Women's Health Center, Inc., et al.
Citations	512 U.S. 753 (more) 114 S. Ct 2516; 129 L. Ed. 2d 593; 1994 U.S. LEXIS 5087
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Operation Rescue v. Women's Health Ctr., Inc., 626 So. 2d 664 (Fla. 1993); cert. granted, 510 U.S. 1084 (1994).
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices Harry Blackmun · John P. Stevens Sandra Day O'Connor · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Case opinions
Majority	Rehnquist, joined by Blackmun, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg; Stevens (parts I, II, III-E, IV)
Concurrence	Souter
Concur/dissent	Stevens
Concur/dissent	Scalia, joined by Kennedy, Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. I

Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753 (1994), is a United States Supreme Court case where Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of an injunction entered by a Florida state court which prohibits antiabortion protesters from demonstrating in certain places, and in various ways outside of a health clinic that performs abortions.^[1]

The Petitioners, Madsen and other abortion protesters (Petitioners) regularly protested the Respondents, the Women’s Health Center and other abortion clinics (Respondent), in Melbourne, Florida as well as in front of the homes of clinic employees. The Respondents then sought and were granted, by a Florida trial court, an injunction on several grounds, restraining the Petitioner’s ability to protest, which was upheld by the Florida Supreme Court. The Petitioner’s appeal to the United States Supreme Court claimed that the injunction restricted their rights to free speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part.