Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U.S. 753, 15 (1994)

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Cite as: 512 U. S. 753 (1994)

Opinion of the Court

Justice Scalia also relies on Claiborne Hardware and Carroll for support of his contention that our precedent requires the application of strict scrutiny in this context. In Claiborne Hardware, we stated simply that "precision of regulation" is demanded. 458 U. S., at 916 (internal quotation marks omitted). Justice Scalia reads this case to require "surgical precision" of regulation, post, at 798, but that was not the adjective chosen by the author of the Court's opinion, Justice Stevens. We think a standard requiring that an injunction "burden no more speech than necessary" exemplifies "precision of regulation." 4

As for Carroll, Justice Scalia believes that the "standard" adopted in that case "is strict scrutiny," which "does not remotely resemble the Court's new proposal." Post, at 799. Comparison of the language used in Carroll and the wording of the standard we adopt, however, belies Justice Scalia's exaggerated contention. Carroll, for example, requires that an injunction be "couched in the narrowest terms that will accomplish the pin-pointed objective" of the injunction. 393 U. S., at 183. We require that the injunction "burden no more speech than necessary" to accomplish its objective. We fail to see a difference between the two standards.

The Florida Supreme Court concluded that numerous significant government interests are protected by the injunction. It noted that the State has a strong interest in protecting a woman's freedom to seek lawful medical or counseling services in connection with her pregnancy. See

4 In stating that "precision of regulation" is required in Claiborne Hardware, moreover, we cited both to Carroll v. President and Comm'rs of Princess Anne, 393 U. S. 175 (1968), a case involving an injunction, and to Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y., 385 U. S. 589 (1967), a case involving a state statute and regulations. If our precedent demanded the different treatment of statutes and injunctions, as Justice Scalia claims, it is difficult to explain our reliance on Keyishian in Claiborne.

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