The U.S. Supreme Court Will Decide The Constitutionality Of Texas' Onerous Abortion Restrictions Law

(The image above is from the New York Times.)

The image on the left shows the number of clinics providing abortions in Texas before the newest abortion restrictions were passed a couple of years ago. The image on the right shows the number of clinics that remain open today. The number of clinics has dropped from 41 to 18 (plus one scheduled to be opened this Fall). If the law is allowed to fully go into effect, at least another 9 clinics will be forced to close.

The law didn't openly outlaw abortion in Texas. The legislature knew they couldn't do that. Instead, they tried to close down as many clinics as possible by putting some onerous restrictions on those clinics. The law mandates that the clinics must meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical clinics (even though abortion is not a surgical procedure), and that clinic doctors must having admitting privileges at a nearby hospital (something most hospitals are loathe to do).

The legislature claimed they were just acting to protect the health of Texas women. That's a ludicrous assertion. Both the American Medical Association and The American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians have said the new restrictions have "no medical necessity" and do nothing to protect the health of women.

That was obvious. The same legislators who passed this law also refused to expand Medicaid, or create a state health exchange to help citizens purchase health insurance. That shows they really don't care about the health of Texas citizens (women or men). The law was simply an effort to make it much harder for Texas women to exercise their right to control their own bodies by choosing to have an abortion.

Pro-choice forces took the new law to court, and they lost in the Court of Appeals. The judges there said it was not their place to judge the efficacy of the legislators beliefs. Now the United States Supreme Court has decided to hear the case. That court has already ruled that states may not put an undue burden on the right of women to choose to have an abortion. They will be deciding if the Texas law does put an undue burden on those women.

I would think that would be obvious, since now many women would have to travel hundreds of miles to exercise their constitutional right (which has to be an undue burden, especially for poor women).

Will the onerous law be struck down or upheld? It could go either way. We can expect Kagan, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Breyer to vote to strike down the law. Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and probably Roberts will vote to uphold the law. As with many recent cases, Kennedy will have the deciding vote. We just have to hope he has one of his intermittent bouts of sanity when deciding how to vote.