Cite as: 506 U. S. 263 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
ally committed against interstate travelers. Rather, it protects interstate travelers against two sets of burdens: "the erection of actual barriers to interstate movement" and "being treated differently" from intrastate travelers. Zobel v. Williams, 457 U. S. 55, 60, n. 6 (1982). See Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180 (1869) (Art. IV, § 2, "inhibits discriminating legislation against [citizens of other States and] gives them the right of free ingress into other States, and egress from them"); Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 395 (1948) (Art. IV, § 2, "insure[s] to a citizen of State A who ventures into State B the same privileges which the citizens of State B enjoy"). As far as appears from this record, the only "actual barriers to . . . movement" that would have resulted from petitioners' proposed demonstrations would have been in the immediate vicinity of the abortion clinics, restricting movement from one portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia to another. Such a purely intrastate restriction does not implicate the right of interstate travel, even if it is applied intentionally against travelers from other States, unless it is applied discriminatorily against them. That would not be the case here, as respondents conceded at oral argument.7
The other right alleged by respondents to have been intentionally infringed is the right to abortion. The District Court declined to rule on this contention, relying exclusively upon the right-of-interstate-travel theory; in our view it also
7 Justice Stevens expresses incredulity at the rule we have described. It is, he says, "unsupported by precedent or reason," post, at 333, both of which show, he claims, that the right of interstate travel is violated even by "conduct that evenhandedly disrupts both local and interstate travel," post, at 337. We cite right-to-travel cases for our position; he cites nothing but negative Commerce Clause cases for his. While it is always pleasant to greet such old Commerce Clause warhorses as Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137 (1970), Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349 (1951), and Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U. S. 761 (1945), cited post, at 337, surely they are irrelevant to the individual right of interstate travel we are here discussing. That right does not derive from the negative Commerce Clause, or else it could be eliminated by Congress.
277
Page: Index Previous 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007