Justices agree to hear first abortion case since 2007

According to this ruling, statues have the right to regulate abortion, so long as the regulations they institute do not impose an undue burden on women’s right to choose.

The U.S. Supreme Court is stepping back into the fight over abortion, ruling on one of the most important abortion cases in 25 years.

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a Texas law that could close three-fourths of the state’s abortion clinics.

At the heart of this case is the “undue burden” standard established by the Supreme Court in another landmark abortion case in 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, wrote in a brief on behalf of those states that courts should not automatically uphold abortion restrictions purely because a state says it is a legitimate health measure. Plaintiffs in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole hope the court will permanently block a provision that mandates clinics change their building codes to match those of ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) – a requirement health advocates have criticized as wholly unnecessary and tantamount to a “multi-million dollar tax” on providers.

The new abortion case, however it is decided, is likely to produce the court term’s most consequential and legally significant decision. A few states, such as Oklahoma and Alabama, have tried to pass similar laws but have been blocked by the courts.

If this decision upholds the Fifth Circuit’s ruling without qualifications, it could mark the de facto end of abortion services in those states where forced-birther lawmakers keep coming up with clever ways to make the procedure ever more hard and expensive for women to obtain even while it remains technically legal.

Should the law take effect, however, the remaining clinics would be located primarily in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio.

Gretchen Borchelt, vice president of health and reproductive rights for the National Women’s Law Association, called Texas “ground zero” in the abortion debate, noting that other states could be discouraged from passing such sweeping legislation if Texas’ law was struck down. After the first part of the law went into effect, more than half of those clinics closed, leaving 19 now open.

Proponents of the law say the provisions are necessary to ensure women’s health and safety.

OH does not require that abortion doctors have admitting privileges at hospitals, but it does require clinics to have transfer agreements with local hospitals and prohibits public hospitals from accepting transfer agreements from those clinics.

On the one hand, the abortion industry clamors for uninterrupted taxpayer funding for alleged “women’s healthcare”, denying they use fungible funds for abortion.

A decision in the case is expected by late June of next year. The court’s order came on a 5-4 vote, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting.

The U.S. Supreme Court will take up components of the abortion law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2013 which greatly restricted access to abortions in the state.

In addition, Operation Rescue reported two Whole Women’s Health abortionists, Alan H. Molson and Robert E. Hanson, for violations discovered during that same investigation, resulting in thousands of dollars in fines.