Texas abortion law faces Supreme Court test

During the past two years 10 states have passed abortion restrictions similar to Texas, if the Supreme Court sides with abortion providers those laws would also be struck down.

The Texas statute in question (House Bill 2) requires that doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic, and that abortion clinics must meet the same standards as hospitals that provide surgeries.

In its decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992, the high court ruled that states generally can regulate abortion unless doing so places an undue burden on women. After the Fifth Circuit’s ruling, the abortion challengers obtained an order from the Supreme Court putting a “stay” on the Fifth Circuit’s ruling pending further review.

Supporters of the law say it was meant to protect the health of patients.

Access to abortion providers is shifting geographically, reports USA Today, with the most clinics in states like NY and California. The state has wide discretion to pass laws ensuring Texas women are not subject to substandard conditions at abortion facilities. There were four provisions total, and when the first two went into effect more than half of abortion clinics closed across the state.

“This is really going to be a defining moment for the Supreme Court in terms of whether or not we’re going to continue to have the strong core protections that we’ve been seeing”, said Nancy Northup of the Center for Reproductive Rights. In its last ruling in 2007, the court upheld a law outlawing dilation-and-extraction second-trimester abortions. Many medical professionals argue that these restrictions put unnecessary burdens on abortion providers: Building and maintaining an ASC is expensive, given the strict requirements regarding features like hallway width and ventilation.

As NPR reported at the time, the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 vote to uphold a federal law banning a procedure called intact dilation and extraction, which abortion opponents have called partial-birth abortion. The other requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Pro-life groups like AUL, whose lawyers have worked on a few of the state-level abortion regulations, said the case is an opportunity for the court to clarify its past rulings allowing for state regulation of abortion facilities. He wrote the majority decision in the Carhart case, but he also co-wrote the plurality opinion in the Planned Parenthood case. Democrats and their likely presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, have vowed to protect a woman’s right to choose while many on the conservative wing of the Republicans are pushing hard to narrow access to legal abortions. The expensive changes would bankrupt most abortion providers and leave the state with an estimated nine clinics for roughly 5 million women.

“While this politically-motivated attack threatens all Texas women, it’s particularly harmful for the 40% of Texas women who are Latina”, González-Rojas said in an emailed statement.