“It’s been a great day for women”, said Vicki Ringer, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, which organized a small rally Monday afternoon in front of the South Carolina Supreme Court.
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The abortion providers who challenged the law said it was medically unnecessary and specifically meant to shut clinics.
“We believe those laws do not protect and enhance women’s health and safety”. At least two dozen states have passed laws similar to those struck down today.
Ginsburg wrote a short opinion noting that laws like Texas’ “that do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion, can not survive judicial inspection” under the court’s earlier abortion-rights decisions.
Tennessee has had similar laws on the books since 2012, but these laws were recently challenged by three abortion clinics, including one in Memphis.
The 5-to-3 opinion broke along ideological lines, with Justice Anthony Kennedy joining the liberal wing of the court in ruling that the law placed an undue burden on a woman’s constitutional right to get an abortion in the state.
Justice Stephen Breyer’s majority opinion said that the rules provided “few, if any, health benefits for women” while posing a “substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions and [constituting] an “undue burden” on their constitutional right to do so”.
She said the state’s regulations were enacted in 1994 and took effect after surviving court challenges, in 2004.
“Abortions taking place in an abortion facility are safe – indeed, safer than numerous procedures that take place outside hospitals and to which Texas does not apply its surgical-center requirements”, he wrote, reviewing the evidence.
In an concurring opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg added: “Many medical procedures, including childbirth, are far more unsafe to patients, yet are not subject to ambulatory-surgical-center or hospital admitting-privileges requirements”.
“Provisions of this law have had a devastating impact on Texas women”.
The justices found that the Texas regulations were not medically necessary but did make it more hard for women seeking an abortion to find a clinic nearby.
Monday’s decision was lauded in Kansas by abortion rights supporters who contend it clearly tells legislatures that such laws are unconstitutional. The court striking down a Texas law that required abortion providers have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and that clinics meet standards for surgical centers. These regulations covered numerous building features such as corridor width, the swinging motion of doors, floor tiles, parking spaces, elevator size, ventilation, electrical wiring, plumbing, floor tiling and even the angle that water flows from drinking fountains.
Meanwhile anti-abortion groups say their fight is far from closed. “We have to be their voice”, said Claire Powell.
Views on abortion in the United States have changed very little over the decades, according to historical polling data. “This could mean that a lot of the legislation that we anticipated that could possibly restrict access to abortion here in Florida is now deemed unconstitutional”. The drop reduced the number to under 20 practices that stayed open.
NARAL Pro-Choice America’s Ilyse Hogue pointed out that, given the current vacancy on the Supreme Court – and the next president’s duty to fill any additional ones that pop up – the decision shows how crucial it is that voters elect a president who will appoint justices that want to protect women’s self-determination. “The next president has to protect women’s rights”. “Women won’t be “punished” for exercising their basic rights”, she said, a dig at presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who once suggested women who get illegal abortions should face “some sort of punishment”.
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The normally nine-justice court was one member short after the February 13 death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who consistently opposed abortion in past rulings.
