"I agree entirely with my Brother STEVENS that the State's interest in protecting the potential life of the fetus cannot justify the exclusion of financially and medically needy women from the benefits to which they would otherwise be entitled solely because the treatment that a doctor has concluded is medically necessary involves an abortion. See post at 448 U. S. 351-352. I write separately to express my continuing disagreement [Footnote 2/1] with the Court's mischaracterization of the nature of the fundamental right recognized in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and its misconception of the manner in which that right is infringed by federal and state legislation withdrawing all funding for medically necessary abortions. Roe v. Wade held that the constitutional right to personal privacy encompasses a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. Roe and its progeny [Footnote 2/2] established that the pregnant woman has a right to be free from state interference with her choice to have an abortion -- a right which, at least prior to the end of the first trimester, absolutely prohibits any governmental regulation of that highly personal decision. [Footnote 2/3] The proposition for which these cases stand thus is not that the State is under an affirmative obligation to ensure access to abortions for all who may desire them; it is that the State must refrain from wielding its enormous power and influence in a manner that might burden the pregnant woman's freedom to choose whether to have an abortion. The Hyde Amendment's denial of public funds for medically necessary abortions plainly intrudes upon this constitutionally protected decision, for both by design and in effect, it serves to coerce indigent pregnant women to bear children that they would otherwise elect not to have. [Footnote 2/4]"