Rust corrodes: the First Amendment implications of Rust v. Sullivan.
In May 1991, the Supreme Court handed down an extraordinary-some would say shocking-decision involving the extent to which the government may condition the use of public subsidies and benefits. In Rust v. Sullivan,1 a bare five justice majority upheld Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations prohibiting recipients of Title X funds2 from counseling patients regarding abortion, finding that this condition did not violate the recipients' First Amendment right to freedom of speech.3 Although Rust was fundamentally an abortion funding case,4 the holding regarding First Amendment issues will not remain confined to the abortion context. The Rust decision could be extended to justify any number of ideological conditions to government funding, a position that may violate a "bedrock principle" of the First Amendment "that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive