Of course, another question is whether the court could end up at a 4-4 tie because of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Advertisement
Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.
CBS News says that Justice Kennedy “didn’t tip his hand Wednesday, although he did ask whether the Court should send the case back for more evidence”.
According to CNN, Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller was interrogated by all the three of the female justices on the bench and by Justice Stephen Breyer. “The possibility of holding it over and rehearing in November when there’s still only eight Justices becomes less attractive to the Court”. “I thought an underlying theme, or at least an underlying factual demonstration, is that this law has really increased the number of surgical procedures as opposed to medical procedures, and that this might not be medically wise”. The rules would cut the number of abortion clinics in the state by three-fourths, abortion providers say. The clinics are hoping he’ll join the court’s four liberal justices in deeming the regulations unconstitutional.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked how the state could point to the existence of abortion clinics in New Mexico, just across the state line from El Paso, as providing access to women there. He was a dominating questioner, and when he and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., fellow conservatives, worked in concert, they formed an intimidating bloc.
Once again, a seemingly valid law is being used as a means to an end: The restricting of abortions and robbing women of their right to choose. Whole Woman’s Health operates abortion-providing clinics in Fort Worth, San Antonio and McAllen, a border city about 150 miles south of Corpus Christi. They pointed out repeatedly that Texas has not required other providers of such outpatient procedures as colonoscopies and liposuction to meet ASC standards, despite the fact that those procedures carry far greater medical risk. Should Hillary Clinton win the presidential election in November, Kennedy’s vote won’t matter, since whoever she picks to replace Scalia will side with the Court’s liberal wing to overturn H.B. 2.
This court arithmetic likely leaves the resolution of the case up to Kennedy, the 79-year-old justice who often acts as a swing vote. Kennedy has a mottled record where abortion is concerned: past year he voted to stay the Texas regulations until the court ruled, and in 1992’s Casey v Planned Parenthood he passed up an opportunity to overturn Roe v Wade, yet he has supported other abortion restrictions that have found their way to the Supreme Court since.
Justices Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor were more clear about their feelings on the case, frequently sparring with Keller over his argument that HB2 is created to protect women’s health. The state law makes abortion clinics meet surgical center requirements and requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospitals.
The cases are at different stages in the legal process, but they involve similar laws and actions by the same federal appeals court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
The case will likely be decided in June.
Advertisement
Hundreds of reproductive rights supporters, dressed in purple, and anti-abortion activists, wearing blue, rallied energetically outside the Supreme Court this morning in the cold; holding up signs, chanting songs, and making speeches-at times drowning one another out.
