The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down two onerous provisions in a Texas abortion law sends a clear and powerful message that medically unjustified restrictions that obstruct a woman’s access to abortion are unconstitutional. In its most sweeping decision on abortion since 1992, the court reaffirmed what it said at that time: If a law regulating abortion before the fetus is viable is more an obstacle to women than a benefit to them, then it violates the Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down two onerous provisions in a Texas abortion law sends a clear and powerful message that medically unjustified restrictions that obstruct a woman’s access to abortion are unconstitutional. In its most sweeping decision on abortion since 1992, the court reaffirmed what it said at that time: If a law regulating abortion before the fetus is viable is more an obstacle to women than a benefit to them, then it violates the Constitution.
Texas had insisted that the restrictions were necessary to protect women. But the court rightly dismissed those arguments, finding them to be mere subterfuge in an effort to block women from getting abortions. Notably, Texas isn’t the only state with such regulations. There are currently lawsuits in a number of states challenging similar laws. Monday’s ruling should lead courts across the country to wipe them off the books.
In the 5-3 vote in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the court held that Texas legislators had gone too far in requiring that doctors who provide abortions must have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and that abortion clinics must be outfitted like ambulatory surgical facilities. The 2013 law, which was partially enjoined while the Supreme Court reviewed it, had already forced half of the 40 clinics in the state to close. Had the court upheld the law and allowed all of its provisions to go into effect, all but about 10 clinics would have been compelled to shut down, leaving many women hundreds of miles from a clinic and overwhelming the few facilities that remained open.
But that’s the point of the law and others like it around the country — to deter women from obtaining safe, legal abortions. Rejecting the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals’ findings, the Supreme Court’s majority found that the state’s supposed concern about the safety of abortion clinics was merely pretextual. As Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in his opinion for the majority, the total number of deaths from abortion in Texas was five from 2001 to 2012. But procedures with far higher rates of mortality, such as outpatient liposuction and in-home childbirth, aren’t required by the state to be done in facilities equipped as surgical units. In short, the rationale for Texas’ latest abortion regulations was fictitious, but the harms to women seeking abortions have been real.
The bluntness of the court’s ruling is a welcome rebuke to the disturbingly widespread efforts by states to obstruct access to abortion by imposing tougher requirements on abortion providers in the name of medical safety. Sadly, the ruling is unlikely to stop antiabortion lawmakers. Instead, they will simply look for other legislative gimmicks to undermine the constitutional right recognized in Roe v. Wade. But when those laws appear, the courts should recognize them for what they are as swiftly and succinctly as the five justices did in this case.
— Los Angeles Times