Leaders of North Dakota’s sole abortion clinic in Fargo say they may again challenge a state law requiring doctors who perform abortions to obtain hospital-admitting privileges now that a similar law in Texas was struck down Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court. “They saw right through it”.
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“It’s exceedingly unfortunate that the court has taken the ability to protect women’s health out of the hands of Texas citizens and their duly-elected representatives”, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said in a statement.
“None of these provisions would actually create a climate that made women safer – and in fact just the opposite”, Davis said. While each individual state law will have to be judged on its own merits, this decision represents “a clear statement by the court about what the standard should be in these types of cases”, said Julie Rikelman, the director of litigation for the group.
Today’s Supreme Court decision will not only strike down HB 2 in Texas, but affect similar so-called “TRAP” (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws that have been implemented across the country.
“Forcing doctors and clinics to jump through hoops that in no way enhance women’s health or wellbeing but serve only to make abortion less available to those who seek it will no longer have a place on the “ready options” list of anti-abortion legislative activists”, Sherry Colb, a professor at Cornell Law School, said Monday in an interview. “Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a pre-viability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access”. The decision preserves a woman’s right to choose.
Thomas wrote that the decision “exemplifies the court’s troubling tendency ‘to bend the rules when any effort to limit abortion, or even to speak in opposition to abortion, is at issue.'” Thomas was quoting an earlier abortion dissent from Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton hailed the ruling in a Twitter posting as a “victory for women in Texas and across America”.
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.
“Our law was quite different from Texas”, Stargel said. Supporters of the legislation argued it would give women who may experience complications from abortions faster access to health care. Lower courts have blocked admitting privileges provisions in five states and halted facilities regulations in two states.
The Supreme Court has appeals pending in two cases involving admitting privilege laws in MS and Wisconsin on which it could act as soon as Tuesday. Whole Woman’s Health is a abortion provider that stayed open despite the restrictions as many other providers closed over the past two years.
And she could use the Supreme Court’s decision in a pending federal lawsuit, which is challenging laws requiring hospital-transfer agreements passed by OH lawmakers in 2013 and 2015.
Dan Patrick, Texas’ lieutenant governor led many social media voices against the Supreme Court ruling.
Americans remain closely divided over whether abortion should be legal.
Texas passed a broad bill imposing several abortion restrictions in 2013.
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The battle over abortion in the state shows no sign of ending.
