“Moreover, there is no medically sound reason for Texas to impose more stringent requirements on abortion facilities than it does on other medical facilities that perform procedures with similar, or even greater, risks”. Now governor, Abbott has pledged to fight again for the law as the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked its implementation.
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The director of the ACLU of Texas said the law was the brainchild of “extremists in the Texas legislature” who have been “whittling” abortion rights away since Roe v. Wade, which created the right to abortion in the United States in 1973.
The measure is being challenged in the supreme court case Whole Woman’s Health v Cole. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to temporarily block certain provisions in a Texas omnibus antiabortion-rights law from taking effect, allowing the remaining clinics in the state to stay open until the high court decides whether to review the case (New York Times, 11/13).
The high court’s decision not to hear the dispute came days after the justices agreed on Friday to hear a challenge by abortion providers to parts of a strict, Republican-backed Texas law they claim seeks to shutter abortion clinics.
“Broadly speaking, the rule the Supreme Court crafts will impact all different types of regulation”, said Steven Aden, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group that supports abortion restrictions. It is illegal for federal funds to be used for abortion services. “As a woman and a mother of 3 daughters, I can stand here and confidently say that they real war on women is abortion”. Proponents have said this protects women by providing continuity of care but abortion providers and medical experts have said it has nearly no public health value.
A MS law mandating admitting privileges, which would have led to the only abortion clinic in the state closing down, was put on hold by a lower court in 2012.
So said one Planned Parenthood executive in a cut-and-paste comment previous year, the kind you’ll see – almost or perfectly verbatim – from the abortion giant’s various affiliates across the country. “Where is the line between making abortions a little more hard or expensive to obtain” (perfectly constitutional) and imposing a “substantial obstacle’ (patently unconstitutional) on women who want them?” Aden tells OneNewsNow that decision was handed down in spite of rare dissents from Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Texas passed the law in 2013 but has not been fully enforced. The first provision, which has already forced more than half of the clinics in the state to close, requires providers to secure hospital admitting privileges.
The Supreme Court on Monday said it would not take up an anti-abortion group’s request to get key documents from the federal government on Planned Parenthood.
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“Women need to have accurate information about their abortion… what to expect, etc.”, said Grossman. These findings demonstrate that in the face of burdensome restrictions on abortions, like Texas’ onerous House Bill 2 (HB2), women will resort to self-induction to terminate their pregnancies.
