[1] The Supreme Court in Webster allowed for states to legislate in an aspect that had previously been thought to be forbidden under Roe v. Wade (1973).

Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion declined to decide the constitutionality of the preamble, quoting from Alabama State Federation of Labor v. McAdory: Lacking any authoritative construction of the statute by the state courts, without which no constitutional question arises, and lacking the authority to give such a controlling construction ourselves, and with a record which presents no concrete set of facts to which the statute is to be applied, the case is plainly not one to be disposed of by the declaratory judgment procedure.Justices O'Connor and Scalia joined Rehnquist's opinion except for the section on viability testing.

He wrote that the plurality's approach would allow a state to put virtually any restriction on abortion so long as it was rationally related to promoting potential life, and that this in effect would overturn Roe.

Noting that the plurality and Scalia together were only a single vote away from effectively overruling Roe, he wrote "I fear for the future" and "a chill wind blows."

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a separate dissent, where he concurred with the plurality in allowing the state to prohibit public funds from being allocated for abortion counselling, but argued the court otherwise should have upheld the lower courts in striking down the remaining restrictions.