Supreme Court to hear abortion case

The Supreme Court announced today that it will hear a lawsuit bought by abortion businesses against a pro-life Texas law responsible for closing abortion clinics that could not guarantee they could protect the health of Texas women.

Among other provisions, the law – called HB2 – requires doctors at all abortion clinics to possess admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and for the clinics to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers. They said that before the law was passed there were 42 clinics in the state that provided abortions.

But in June, the court did issue a stay of a final decision by the 5th Circuit, which would have meant that the 19 clinics still operating in Texas would have been reduced to 10.

“Ted’s position on immigration is not much different than mine”, said the Florida senator.

Any decision made by the court will be possibly be the most significant on the issue in more than a decade.

As CRR attorney Stephanie Toti and Whole Woman’s Health CEO Amy Hagstrom Miller contend, the true aim of the law is to shut down Texas abortion clinics. More than half of those closed when the admitting privileges requirement was allowed to take effect. In Texas, the fight is over two provisions of the law that Gov. Rick Perry signed in 2013. Texas is a state of 27 million people. Casey was a huge victory for abortion-rights advocates because it ended up reaffirming the constitutional right to an abortion that the court established in Roe v. Wade in 1973. “It’s time for the Supreme Court to send a clear message that these risky laws create an undue burden on a woman seeking an abortion”.

The core legal question in the matter coming before the court this term is whether the Texas law places an “undue burden” on the woman’s right to have an abortion, a standard the high court adopted in a 1992 ruling that upheld Roe v. Wade. The other two parts of the four part law – a rule banning abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and a requirement that forces abortion doctors to follow outdated FDA protocol when administering abortion drugs – have already gone into effect.

Paxton stresses that the Supreme Court has recognized that states have a legitimate interest in protecting the health of a woman and that the law “ensures doctors are qualified, promotes continuity of care in the case of complications that require hospitalization, and reduces communication errors and time delays when a patient must be treated at a hospital”.