US Supreme Court will hear challenge to Texas abortion law

On the subject of health care regulations specifically, the court said that “unnecessary” regulations that present a “substantial obstacle” to a woman exercising her abortion right amount to an undue burden.

Opponents of Texas’ law, however, argues that it forces the closure of numerous abortion clinics that can not afford to “upgrade” their facilities to hospital standards, and makes circumstances more hard for women to access the reproductive services.

September 2013 – Before the law is enforced, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers challenge the measure, asserting that certain provisions, including the one related to doctors’ admitting privileges, were aimed at decreasing the availability of abortion in the state.

The case focuses on a part of the law that has yet to go into effect requiring abortion clinics in Texas to have hospital-grade facilities – a requirement that would require costly upgrades at many providers’ offices.

Sound Off! CatholicCulture.org supporters weigh in. We’re relieved to see that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider a challenge to the constitutionality of this corrosive law and believe they will see what we have seen since the beginning and strike down this bill.

Back then the court said states could try to persuade women not to have an abortion by requiring a 24-hour waiting period and counseling before an abortion.

Officials in Texas said the contested provisions were needed to protect women’s health.

Under the law abortion clinics must now meet the same operating-room standards as hospitals.

The decision reached by the high court will not be ideal, but it will decide the fate of the Texas law and set national precedent. But at the end of the day, the court said states could not place “an undue burden” on a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

The justices will hear the case early 2016, and their decision is expected by late June. The ruling in Gonzales v Carhart upheld a federal law prohibiting the practice of partial-birth abortion, a practice which seems to have made a comeback anyway, based on descriptions of procedures at Planned Parenthood clinics in undercover videos.

These states have pursued restrictions including bans on certain types of abortion procedures, regulatory standards imposed on clinics and abortion doctors, waiting periods, ultrasound requirements and others.

“They’re about shutting down clinics and attempting to prevent a woman who has chose to have an abortion from getting one”, Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement.

Friday’s announcement by the Supreme Court was no surprise, because the justices intervened in June to block the Texas law from taking effect.

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.