In a 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v Casey, the supreme court gave states the right to restrict abortion in the interest of the woman’s health as long as the restriction is not an “undue burden”.
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“The abortion industry has always operated at the expense of women and families“.
Back then the court said states could try to persuade women not to have an abortion by requiring a 24-hour waiting period and counseling before an abortion. The law requires abortion clinics to meet the safety standards required of other surgical centers; doctors are required to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. If the clinic did not meet the requirement, their alternative was to contract with a local doctor who already had admitting privileges to serve as an outside covering physician.
Before the law passed, Texas had around 40 abortion clinics in the state but the number is now down to 18, and a few clinics argue the number can drop to as low as 9 or 10 in the entire state.
Whole Woman’s Health is one of several providers suing to overturn the law.
The abortion challengers had initially prevailed in federal district court in Texas, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit unanimously upheld Texas abortion laws except as applied to two particular abortion facilities (in El Paso and McAllen). “A finding of an undue burden is a shorthand for the conclusion that a state regulation has the goal or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus”.
“We can’t envision a scenario where nine lawyers would say the health standards in each state is irrelevant to a woman”, he said. “They’ve passed laws to make abortion less affordable, force women to wait, and shut down clinics in our communities”.
“The common-sense measures Texas has put in place elevate the standard of care and protect the health of Texas women”, stated Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. If allowed to take full effect, the law would leave no abortion clinics in the hundreds of miles (kilometers) that lie west of San Antonio and only one operating on a limited basis in the Rio Grande Valley bordering Mexico.
The measures go beyond what is necessary to ensure patients’ safety because the risks from abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy, when the overwhelming majority of abortions are performed, are minimal, the institute said.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the Texas challenge, said officials in Texas had used “deceptive laws and regulatory red tape” to block access to abortion.
“For them, this isn’t about “protecting” the women they purport to help, it’s about preserving their cash flow”, she said. Abortion providers say that if those two provisions of the law continue – they’re now on hold – the number of abortion facilities in Texas will fall to 10.
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The high court has twice intervened in the abortion lawsuit. Read facts on major U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion rights here.
