US Supreme court wades back into abortion fight

The high court’s ruling could be the country’s most important abortion-related decision since Roe v. Wade.

The Texas law that has caused so many clinics to shut down mandates that abortion providers have the same standards as “ambulatory surgical centers”, with certain requirements for equipment, staff and infrastructure.

The case is a challenge to a Texas law that would leave the state with about 10 abortion clinics, down from more than 40.

But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton counters in legal briefs that the provisions “raise the standard of care for all abortion patients” and maintains that if allowed to go fully into effect the law will “improve the health and safety of women”.

But our Constitution and the legal system built around it calls for the Supreme Court to examine such complicated controversies growing out of the laws we adopt and to decide what interpretations best fit the ideals expressed in the nation’s founding document.

The abortion challengers had initially prevailed in federal district court in Texas, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit unanimously upheld Texas abortion laws except as applied to two particular abortion facilities (in El Paso and McAllen). A decision is expected by the turn of June, next year, a few 4 months before the presidential elections is scheduled. In Texas-and in many other states with similar laws in place-many women must now travel hundreds of miles to reach a provider.

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.

“The muddiness of the standard has opened the door to states pushing the envelope with every kind of abortion restriction imaginable, leading to the very real possibility that both “undue burden” and Roe itself become utterly meaningless”, said B.

Brown said the admitting privileges requirement is “medically unnecessary” and forced the closure of 23 of the 42 abortion-providing facilities in Texas.

The circuit court also said that under the Supreme Court’s prior decisions, it was required to defer to the state’s asserted “rational” justification for the law – protecting women’s health – even though that assertion is not supported by empirical evidence.

“Access to health care should not depend on a person’s income, where they live or their ability to travel to another state”, Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, said in a statement. But, that changed Friday, as the justices agreed to look at a dispute over state regulations in Texas and Mississippi.

The court will likely hear arguments and rule on the case next summer.

“This is really going to be a defining moment for the Supreme Court in terms of whether or not we’re going to continue to have the strong core protections that we’ve been seeing”, said Northup, NBC News reported.

A sweeping opinion on the Texas law would have immediate consequences for abortion clinics in seven other states.