558
Scalia, J., dissenting
that restrict an indigent woman's ability to enjoy the full range of constitutionally protected freedom of choice are the product not of governmental restrictions on access to abortion, but rather of her indigency." 500 U. S., at 203 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The only conceivable argument that can be made for distinguishing Rust is that there even patients who wished to receive abortion counseling could receive the nonabortion services that the Government-funded clinic offered, whereas here some potential LSC clients who wish to receive representation on a benefits claim that does not challenge the statutes will be unable to do so because their cases raise a reform claim that an LSC lawyer may not present. This difference, of course, is required by the same ethical canons that the Court elsewhere does not wish to distort. Rather than sponsor "truncated representation," ante, at 546, Congress chose to subsidize only those cases in which the attorneys it subsidized could work freely. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 2996(6) ("[A]ttorneys providing legal assistance must have full freedom to protect the best interests of their clients"). And it is impossible to see how this difference from Rust has any bearing upon the First Amendment question, which, to repeat, is whether the funding scheme is " 'manipulated' to have a 'coercive effect' " on those who do not hold the subsidized position. National Endowment for Arts v. Finley, 524 U. S., at 587 (quoting Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S., at 237 (Scalia, J., dissenting)). It could be claimed to have such an effect if the client in a case ineligible for LSC representation could eliminate the ineligibility by waiving the claim that the statute is invalid; but he cannot. No conceivable coercive effect exists.
This has been a very long discussion to make a point that is embarrassingly simple: The LSC subsidy neither prevents anyone from speaking nor coerces anyone to change speech, and is indistinguishable in all relevant respects from the sub-
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