“We as reproductive rights activists and advocates will need to review the laws and the impact of laws to see if there’s room to challenge based on the court’s ruling”, says Dreith.
Advertisement
The court, in a 5-3 decision written by Justice Stephen Breyer, found two requirements of the Texas law placed unconstitutional burdens on access to abortions: The law imposed both an “admitting privileges requirement” and a “surgical center requirement” on all abortion providers and clinics.
The justices split largely along liberal-conservative lines in their emergency orders, with the court’s conservative justices voting repeatedly to let the law be enforced.
The court “has stripped from states the authority to extend additional protections to women such as clinic safety standards or admitting privilege requirements for abortionists”, said Notre Dame University law professor Carter Snead.
“This measure is created to protect the health and safety of women who undergo this potentially unsafe procedure, and physicians who provide abortions should be held to the same standards as physicians who perform other outpatient procedures”, Bryant said.
Justice Stephen Breyer ruled for the majority that states can not impose restrictions that pose an undue burden on women seeking abortions without sufficient medical reasons.
Texas is among 10 states with similar admitting-privileges requirements, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The Supreme Court allowed the admitting privileges requirement to take effect in most of the state, but put the surgical center provision on hold pending the court’s resolution of the case. The laws are on hold in both states, and a panel of federal appellate judges has concluded the MS law probably is unconstitutional because it would force the only abortion clinic in the state to close.
October 2013: At least 12 abortion clinics close after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the new law’s requirement that doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. “Texas’ goal is to protect innocent life, while ensuring the highest health and safety standards for women”, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott said.
The Supreme Court has appeals pending in two cases involving admitting privilege laws in MS and Wisconsin on which it could act as soon as Tuesday. In a Reuters/Ipsos online poll involving 6,769 USA adults conducted from June 3 to June 22, 47 percent of respondents said abortion generally should be legal and 42 percent said it generally should be illegal.
The hospital-like outpatient surgery standards are in place in Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and it is blocked in Tennessee and Texas, according to the center, which represented the clinics in the Texas case.
The last time the justices decided a major abortion case was nine years ago when they ruled 5-4 to uphold a federal law banning a late-term abortion procedure.
“Every day, our team at Whole Woman’s Health treats our patients with compassion, respect, and dignity – and today the Supreme Court did the same”, acknowledged Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health.
The Democratic presidential candidate says in a signed posting to Twitter that a “safe abortion should be a right-not just on paper, but in reality”.
Advertisement
Some U.S. states have pursued a variety of restrictions on abortion, including banning certain types of procedures, prohibiting it after a certain number of weeks of gestation, requiring parental permission for girls until a certain age, imposing waiting periods or mandatory counseling, and others.
