(d) the advertising is addressed to persons named in paragraph (a) and confined to trade or professional channels not likely to reach the general public. (7) Section Inapplicable to Prevention of Pregnancy. Nothing in this Section shall be deemed applicable to the prescription, administration or distribution of drugs or other substances for avoiding pregnancy, whether by preventing implantation of a fertilized ovum or by any other method that operates before, at or immediately after fertilization. MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting. The holding in Roe v. Wade, ante, that state abortion laws can withstand constitutional scrutiny only if the States can demonstrate a compelling state interest apparently compels the Court's close scrutiny of the various provisions in Georgia's abortion statute. Since, as indicated by my dissent in Wade, I view the compelling state interest standard as an inappropriate measure of the constitutionality of state abortion laws, I respectfully dissent from the majority's holding. CRS-3 District, which is now largely self-governing, District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act, P.L. 93-198, 87 Stat. 774, is nowhere mentioned in the proposal, the District derives its entire authority to govern by delegation from Congress. As the Court noted in Metropolitan Railroad Co. v. District of Columbia, 132 U.S. 1, 9 (1889), while the District "is a separate political community," its "sovereign power ... is not lodged in the corporation of the District of Columbia, but in the government of the United States. Its supreme legislative body is Congress." And that sovereign power may be exercised over the District by either Congress or a governing body in the District in receipt of delegated powers from Congress. "[T]here is no constitutional barrier to the delegation by Congress to the District of Columbia of full legislative power, subject of course to constitutional limitations to which all lawmaking is subservient and subject also to the power of Congress at any time to revise, alter, or revoke the authority granted." District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., 346 U.S. 100, 109 (1953). See also Barnes v. District of Columbia, 91 U.S. 540 (1876); Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389 (1973); Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372 (1977). A constitutional amendment, therefore, which confers powers upon Congress empowers it to act for the District through legislation enacted by Congress or to delegate that power to a local governing body within the District. Assuming that the language of the District's "home rule" statute encompasses abortion as a subject of delegated power ratification of the proposed amendment 2/ would enlarge the District governing body's authority in that respect. 2/ The only question that might be raised would be whether the conferral of "concurrent" power on Congress and the States would for this purpose suspend the "exclusive" jurisdiction vested in Congress by Article I, §8, cl. 17. The (continued) CRS-4 It is thus submitted that the proposed amendment would in the event of ratification apply as fully in the District as elsewhere in the United States. ани Johnny H. Killian (continued) purpose of the word "exclusive" in that clause was to eliminate any possibility that Congress' legislative power would have to be shared with the ceding States. District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., supra, 109. But concurrency only operates where two governing entities have geographical supervision over the same area: a State's laws cannot except in rare circumstances operate extraterritorially, see, e.g., Article IV, §1, and no basis exists for Maryland or Virginia to assume to have any legislative authority within the territory of the District of Columbia. |