Key events leading up to Monday’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down the strict Texas anti-abortion restriction law known as HB2.
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Anti-abortion activists since Roe v. Wade have worked to pass a slew of laws across the country restricting abortions or making them more hard, like the law struck down in Texas. In this particular instance, the Texas legislature is now requiring that doctors who opt to perform abortions have “admitting privileges” at hospitals within 30 miles of an family planning clinic which provides abortions as well as the requirement of said clinics to have hospital-grade equipment which can be very costly.
Mary Ziegler, a Florida State University law professor who studies reproductive-health issues, said she thought the laws were “similar enough” that “at a minimum, (Monday’s decision) casts serious doubt on the constitutionality of all laws like it”.
The Supreme Court is set to issue its first major opinion on abortion in almost 10 years on Monday, closing out a tumultuous term marred by the absence of one its judges.
Clinic owners also say the surgical-center requirement imposes multimillion-dollar renovation or building costs that they can not meet, potentially leaving only nine already built centers in the state’s five largest cities – and none south and west of San Antonio, placing a particular burden on low-income rural women.
Two questions were at the heart of the biggest abortion case the nation’s highest court has taken up in nearly a decade: Do the new Texas restrictions place so much burden on women seeking the procedure that they’re effectively denied a constitutional right?
Deferring to state legislatures over “questions of medical uncertainty is also inconsistent with this court’s case law”, Breyer added.
But state Sen. Kelli Stargel said the Florida law, which takes effect Friday, has been unfairly compared to Texas’: “They’re not the same”. Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy also seemed critical about aspects of the Texas law, leaving many of those opposed to the abortion laws in question hoping that he sides with the liberals in the final tally. Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortionist, was convicted in May 2013 on three counts of first-degree murder for babies born alive who were killed at his clinic, and he was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after a woman died from an anesthesia overdose at his clinic.
The justices handed down five rulings on Thursday, including two cases that ended in 4-4 ties. Let’s assume that the case works its way in the next several months back up again from the district court to the Fifth Circuit appellate court to the Supreme Court, with the decision to prohibit the government from enacting the programs intact.
“If Scalia had been on the court, [Kennedy] might have been persuaded to write the case differently”, Greenfield told Business Insider in an email. And it required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
In the face of no threat to women’s health, Texas seeks to force women to travel long distances to get abortions in crammed-to-capacity superfacilities.
A federal appeals court upheld the Texas law in 2015, and last spring a majority of the Supreme Court voted to stay that ruling pending appeal.
“When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety”, she wrote.
Those provisions are now invalidated across the United States, based on the Court’s decision Monday.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia passed away before the March oral argument, depriving the court’s conservative wing of another certain vote.
The case divided the court along ideological lines.
August 2014 – A US district court judge declares the admitting privileges and clinic requirements an unconstitutional burden on women’s access to abortion.
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McDonnell contends that he legally accepted gifts from a personal friend, but did nothing more as a public official than impartially set up meetings for the same man.
