Bigelow v. Virginia

An advertisement carried in appellant’s newspaper led to his conviction for a violation of a Virginia statute that made it a misdemeanor, by the sale or circulation of any publication, to encourage or prompt the procuring of an abortion. The issue here is whether the editor-appellant’s First Amendment rights were unconstitutionally abridged by the statute. The First Amendment, of course, is applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 160 (1939).

I

The Virginia Weekly was a newspaper published by the Virginia Wéekly Associates of Charlottesville.…