![]() Instead, three justices appointed by Republicans – Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter and Kennedy - came together to uphold the essential right to an abortion but give states latitude to regulate it unless such laws put an “undue burden” on a woman. At the time, people on either side of the issue believed the court was close to overturning Roe v. Casey, for crafting a standard so broad and vague that many women have fallen right through it. Some commentators blame the Supreme Court’s last major abortion case, from 1992, Planned Parenthood v. RELATED: Wendy Davis to start new women's organization Such laws, said Yale law school professor Reva Siegel at an American Constitution Society panel on abortion rights Friday, “are destroying what remains of the infrastructure through which women are able to exercise the right of choice.” They’re known in the abortion rights community as “TRAP” laws, which stands for “targeted regulation of abortion providers” and also indicates the desired effect on clinics. Of the tangled web of abortion restrictions, which has thickened since Republicans took over many statehouses in 2010, the laws with the most impact are aimed at the clinics themselves. But no major opinion has been as flagrant as the one issued by a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals a week ago, giving the green light to the Texas law. “We’re hopeful that even if the 5th Circuit doesn’t stay the order,” said Rikelman, allowing the clinic regulations to officially go into effect, “the Supreme Court will.” If the highest court lets Texas enforce the law while the case goes through the normal, months-long processes, she said, many clinics wouldn’t be able to reopen by the time it rules.įor the past five years, states and judges hostile to abortion have been engaged in a kind of ongoing dare aimed at Justice Kennedy. That's why the clinics want the Supreme Court to step in, first to block the law from going into effect and then to fully consider its constitutionality. Said Julie Rikelman, litigation director at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is involved in all three cases,“We won both of the cases, and they’re both good decisions." In Texas, legally speaking, things can’t get any worse for abortion access. Nearly 1 million women of reproductive age would live more than 150 miles from an abortion clinic, and other red states would likely follow in Texas’s footsteps.Īdvocates for abortion rights have been hoping that the Supreme Court steers clear entirely of the Mississippi and North Carolina cases. Last week, the 5th Circuit signed off on the law, which, combined with a prior hospital admitting privileges requirement, would leave less than 10 clinics where there were once around 40. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals narrowly found that the state could not just tell women to go to another state for their constitutional rights, and Mississippi appealed.īy July 1, the court is expected to receive an emergency request from abortion clinics in Texas to put on hold a state law requiring that all abortions take place in mini-hospitals. They have already conferenced the Mississippi case three times, including last Thursday, the same day the justices discussed the North Carolina case for the first time. The Mississippi law at issue requires all doctors to have local hospital admitting privileges, which would shut down the state’s last abortion clinic. The justices meet privately, in what is known as a conference, to vote on whether to take a case. RELATED: A dozen Texas abortion clinics could close soon Wade, is willing to let anti-abortion state governments go in restricting women’s access. The ultimate question is how far swing Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has previously declined to overturn the landmark abortion case Roe v. If the court does choose to take up the issue, which it has avoided since 2007, an opinion would come down mere months before the 2016 presidential election. Depending on how the court moves forward, it’s no exaggeration to say the legal abortion access of millions of American women hangs in the balance. It may also take up a Texas abortion law that has decimated clinics there. After several meetings about it, the court hasn't said whether it will take up the constitutionality of a Mississippi abortion law that threatens to close the last clinic in the state. ![]() ![]() Advocates for abortion rights cheered the move.īut this story is far from over. With the Supreme Court's action today, from which Justice Scalia dissented without further comment, that conclusion stands. ![]() The federal appeals court had found that North Carolina's law violated the First Amendment rights of both doctor and patient. The Supreme Court has declined to hear the case of a North Carolina abortion law, meaning that abortion patients in that state won't be forced to view an ultrasound beforehand and doctors won't be required to describe it to them.
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