Supreme Court To Hear First Abortion Case Since 2007

WASHINGTON (Christian Examiner) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced it will hear a case challenging a Texas law which placed tighter controls on abortion clinics in 2013.

The Supreme Court will take up its biggest abortion case in 25 years, promising to decide exactly to what extent abortion can be limited and regulated without violating a woman’s constitutional rights. If the court upholds the Texas law, similar laws would also fall. But if the court rules in favor of the state, then more states would be able to follow suit. It requires abortion clinics to meet the same building standards as outpatient surgical centers and requires their doctors to have hospital-admitting privileges.

The high court, which previously has blocked provisions of the Texas law, will examine whether two particular provisions place undue burdens on women’s constitutional rights to abortions.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defended the law, saying “common sense measures” will “ensure Texas women are not subject to substandard conditions at abortion facilities”.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that if the Texas law is upheld, “copy cat laws around the nation will proliferate, creating disparities in access to care”.

Conservative groups that approve of the laws say they’ll protect women and prevent abuses like the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion provider sentenced to life in jail for first-degree murder whose clinic was described as a filthy house of horrors.

The Supreme Court may hand down its decision in June next year. Women can get very similar procedures to abortions, for instance when they’re having a miscarriage, in a doctor’s office in many states. If it goes into full effect, the law would leave only 10 open in the state.

Texas state officials say the law is about health and safety.

Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group, has draft legislation that it encourages states to adopt. “Medical uncertainty underlying a statute is for resolution by legislatures, not the courts”, the appeals court concluded.

Planned Parenthood is fighting Texas on another front: the state has dropped the group from its Medicaid program.

According to the Times, the Supreme Court in hearing the lawsuit could clarify its 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the high court held that states cannot impose an undue burden on a woman’s right to abortion prior to fetal viability.

Texas contends that HB 2 “raise[s] the standard of care for all abortion patients” and “will improve the health and safety of women”.

She cited Nebraska and OH as states that would be among those most likely to enact new laws.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in the Texas case is unlikely to directly affect other aspects of the broader abortion wars.

But the justices will be asked again in coming months to take up the broader issue, with appeals coming that concern bans in Arkansas and North Dakota, both of which were struck down by lower courts.