Supreme Court To Decide On Texas Anti-Abortion Law

In an interesting development, Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia published their reasons for wanting to grant review in the case.

As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit noted in its decision on the Texas law earlier this year, however, even as the Supreme Court invented a constitutional right to abortion in 1973 in Roe v. Wade, the justices were clear that the decision doesn’t preclude states from placing reasonable requirements on abortion clinics and doctors. The divide over protecting the unborn and safeguarding the right of a woman to choose is among the starkest differences between the Republican and Democratic candidates. Only 13 percent of those surveyed stated that self-induced abortion should be against the law and women should be prosecuted for it. By contrast, 34 percent of women stated that while they themselves were against abortion, they understood “why a woman would try this”.

“As clinic-based care becomes harder to access in Texas, we can expect more women to feel that they have no other option and take matters into their own hands”, said Daniel Grossman, a TxPEP co-investigator and Professor in Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.

Grossman cautioned that the study didn’t specifically ask about abortions since 2013, when the omnibus anti-abortion law HB2 was passed and clinics started closing.

Latinas living near the border are a few of the most vulnerable women when it comes to accessing abortion.

Rep. Dan Ramos, D-Lorain, said that a bill passed in 1998 under Gov. Bob Taft already did what Conditt described by banning the use of state funds for abortions.

The American Civil Liberties Union said a statement Friday the Texas bill was opposed by groups such as the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Family Physicians and American Osteopathic Association. “The state has wide discretion to pass laws ensuring Texas women are not subject to substandard conditions at abortion facilities”.

“There’s an undue burden when women have to drive 250 miles one way, take off two days of work and get child care in order to have a procedure that is protected by the Constitution”, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, who owns four abortion clinics in Texas.

An abortion rights rally outside Texas’ state capitol in 2013.

She continued: “I am, of course, aware of the news reports about them”. On the other side, groups like Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union lobby against new abortion restrictions. “HHS is withholding documents that are critical in evaluating apparently illegal funding that the administration provided to the abortion giant despite New Hampshire’s grave concerns and without following normal protocols”.

As for the law creating an “undue burden” for women, Pojman says they still have access to all pregnancy-related health services accept abortion. PPNNE spent $1.5 million on “public policy” and almost a million dollars on fundraising in 2014, according to the financial report attached to its 2015 contract application.