Linton said that the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling can’t undo all the years of severe funding cuts to preventive health care.
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At issue in the court’s decision were two specific provisions of a sweeping law to restrict abortions passed by the Texas Legislature in 2013.
It ensures that when courts adjudicate laws that burden the right to choose abortion – no less than other fundamental rights – they will carefully review the evidence to ensure that the law actually advances the interests asserted by the government.
The Supreme Court issued its strongest defense of abortion rights in a quarter-century Monday, striking down Texas’ widely replicated rules that sharply reduced abortion clinics in the nation’s second-most-populous state.
Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said the law provided few, if any, health benefits and posed a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions.
The high court ruled 5-3 that a Texas law imposing strict regulations on abortion doctors and facilities put an undue burden on women exercising their right to abortion, which has been legal in the United States since 1973. Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of the abortion clinic challenging the law, called it a smokescreen.
The dissents in the case – one written by Thomas, and one by Justice Samuel Alito that was joined by the Chief Justice and Thomas – are notable both for what they say and do not say. “The most traumatic part of my experience was the stress of having to come up with the money to go out of state”, Russell said. In reaching this conclusion, the majority stressed that Texas had improperly singled out abortion providers for harsher, medically unnecessary regulation without any good reason.
State Attorney General Jeff Landry says Louisiana’s law differs from the Texas law, and the Supreme Court ruling was heavily based on facts in Texas.
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented the clinics, said, “The Supreme Court sent a loud and clear message that politicians can not use deceptive means to shut down abortion clinics”. “This ruling contradicts the consensus among medical groups that such measures protect women’s lives”, said Deirdre McQuade, assistant director for pro-life communications at the USCCB’s Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. The requirement is in effect in most of Texas, Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee.
The justices voted 5-3 in support of Texas clinics, which argued the regulations were an attempt to make it harder for women to get an abortion.
Similar laws in Tennessee are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit. Had the law that former Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis once temporarily blocked with an 11-hour filibuster been found constitutional, only 10 would have remained open in a state of 27 million people.
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Republican Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick added that abortion clinics are now “free to ignore these basic safety standards and continue practicing under substandard conditions”.
