Cite as: 509 U. S. 418 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Bigelow is not about a woman's constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy.3 It is about paternalism, and informational protectionism. It is about one State's interference with its citizens' fundamental constitutional right to travel in a state of enlightenment, not government-induced ignorance. Cf. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 629-631 (1969).4 I would reaffirm this basic First Amendment principle. In seeking to assist nonlottery States in their efforts to shield their citizens from the perceived dangers emanating from a neighboring State's lottery, the Federal Government has not regulated the content of such advertisements to ensure that they are not misleading, nor has it provided for the distribution of more speech, such as warnings or educational information about gambling. Rather, the United States has selected the most intrusive, and dangerous, form of regulation possible—a ban on truthful information regarding a lawful activity imposed for the purpose of manipulating, through ignorance, the consumer choices of some of its citizens. Unless justified by a truly substantial governmental interest, this extreme, and extremely paternalistic, measure surely cannot withstand scrutiny under the First Amendment.
3 If anything, the fact that underlying conduct is not constitutionally protected increases, not decreases, the value of unfettered exchange of information across state lines. When a State has proscribed a certain product or service, its citizens are all the more dependent on truthful information regarding the policies and practices of other States. Cf. Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, 506 U. S. 263, 332 (1993) (Stevens, J., dissenting). The alternative is to view individuals as more in the nature of captives of their respective States than as free citizens of a larger polity.
4 "For all the great purposes for which the Federal government was formed, we are one people, with one common country. We are all citizens of the United States; and, as members of the same community, must have the right to pass and repass through every part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own States." Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283, 492 (1849).
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