PIP: In June 1986, Missouri enacted a bill requiring all abortions after 16 weeks of gestation to be performed in a hospital, that a physician performing an abortion after 20 weeks conduct a series of elaborate tests to determine fetal viability, and that public funds, employees, and facilities not be used for any abortion-related activity. The U.S. Supreme Court accepted the case, Webster et al. vs. Reproductive Health Services et al., in January 1989. A record 78 amicus briefs were filed. This article highlights both Missouri's (appellants) and the challengers' (appellees) briefs and extracts of a sampling of a few relevant amicus briefs. Appellants' brief discusses the collision course between advancing technology, fetal viability, and the trimester abortion framework. It denies that the right to engage in abortion is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history or tradition." It also favors reconsidering the Court's precedents (stare decisis). The Solicitor General's amicus brief states that the Roe decision has caused controversy, rests unsteadily on its Constitutional foundation, uses an unworkable trimester framework, and has usurped state legislative powers to weight competing interests. Appellees argue the logic and necessity of Roe based upon prior Court decisions regarding birth control availability in Griswold vs. Connecticut and Eisenstadt vs. Baird granting privacy and individual autonomy as a fundamental personal liberty well grounded in the Constitution. Overturning Roe would instantly criminalize the protections previously granted to conduct undertaken by thousands of citizens each day. A physician's duty changes as technology changes; and viability continues to provide a clear articulation of a physician's responsibilities. The amicus briefs recognize the traditions inherent in this country's history of long declared and well established individual rights, the acculturation and assimilation of abortion into our society, and the recognition that our country's earliest abortion laws were directed at protecting the lives and health of late 19th century women.