SCOTUS Throws Out Texas Abortion Access Law
Posted by Michelle Moquin on June 28th, 2016
Good Morning!
Woo hoo! A victory for women!! Great news.
Thank you SCOTUS…Specifically: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, along with Stephen G. Breyer, who wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Anthony Kennedy.
How will this ripple effect other States? Read on…
Here’s the write from the NY times:
Abortion Ruling Could Create Waves of Legal Challenges
From Texas to Alabama to Wisconsin, more than a dozen Republican-run states in recent years have passed laws requiring that abortion clinics have hospital-grade facilities or use doctors with admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Now, Monday’s Supreme Court ruling — that those provisions in a Texas law do not protect women’s health and place an undue burden on a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion — will quickly reverberate across the country.
It will prevent the threatened shutdown of clinics in some states, especially in the Deep South, that have been operating in a legal limbo, with Texas-style laws on temporary hold. But legal experts said the effect over time was likely to be wider, potentially giving momentum to dozens of legal challenges, including to laws that restrict abortions with medication or ban certain surgical methods.
“The ruling deals a crushing blow to this most recent wave of state efforts to shut off access to abortion through hyper-regulation,” said Suzanne B. Goldberg, the director of the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School.
Adopting stringent regulations on abortion clinics and doctors that are said to be about protecting women’s health has been one of the anti-abortion movement’s most successful efforts, imposing large expenses on some clinics, forcing others to close and making it harder for women in some regions to obtain abortions. Republicans like Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who deplored Monday’s ruling, argued that they were requiring clinics to “be held to the same standards as other medical facilities.”
Now, the court has ruled that any such requirements must be based on convincing medical evidence that the rules are solving a real health issue to be weighed by a court, not by ideologically driven legislators — and that the benefits must outweigh the burdens imposed on women’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Anti-abortion groups expressed anger at Monday’s decision, insisting that abortion care is rife with unreported medical risks and malpractice, and vowed to press on. Americans United for Life, which has been a principal architect of the legislative strategy of putting requirements on clinics in the name of protecting women’s health, said it would continue to fight “to protect women from a dangerous and greedy abortion industry.”
“I’m confident that the states will move ahead to fill the public health vacuum that the Supreme Court has created,” said Clarke Forsythe, the acting president of Americans United for Life. “This decision does not foreclose more narrowly tailored regulations,” he said, promising that new ones will be developed state by state.
Since the Supreme Court has long held that women have a constitutional right to an abortion, anti-abortion groups over the past decade have turned to the states to pass hundreds of laws designed to discourage abortions, such as waiting periods, mandated fetal sonograms and parental consent requirements.
Most recently, promoting stringent regulations on abortion clinics and doctors has been one of the movement’s most successful efforts.
Since 2011, for example, nine states have passed physician admitting-privilege requirements, bringing the total, including Texas, to 11, though in several cases the laws have been temporarily blocked. Similar proposals are pending in five more states, according to Elizabeth Nash, a researcher with the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
Dr. Willie Parker at Reproductive Health Services of Montgomery in February in Montgomery, Ala. Dr. Parker, a roving doctor who performs abortions at two clinics in Alabama and at a clinic in Mississippi, said on Monday that the Texas decision was “a huge victory.” CreditMelissa Golden for The New York Times
The latest admitting-privilege law, though a weaker one than that in Texas, is due to take effect on July 1 in Florida. Gov. Rick Scott said he was studying the implications of Monday’s Supreme Court decision. The Florida law allows clinics, as an alternative, to have a general transfer agreement with a nearby hospital, but it is unclear whether all of the state’s clinics can comply.
The clearest and probably quickest effect of the Supreme Court decision will be in the other states with admitting-privilege laws — which mainstream medical groups say are medically unnecessary, and which clinics in some regions cannot meet because of hostility to abortion.
Such laws threatened to force the shutdown of four of five clinics in Alabama, three of four clinics in Louisiana and the sole abortion clinic operating in Mississippi. Given Monday’s decision, none of the laws in those states, or in others where similar requirements are temporarily blocked, including Kansas, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, are likely to survive.
Robin Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly, said in a statement: “Today the court has put women’s health and safety on the back burner for the profits of Planned Parenthood and abortion providers.”
He added: “As a pro-life legislator, I will continue to support legislation that protects the life of an unborn child and the health of the mother.”
On the other side of the issue, Dr. Willie Parker, who as a roving doctor who performs abortions at two Alabama clinics in cities where he cannot obtain admitting privileges and at the one clinic in Mississippi, said with relief that the Texas decision was “a huge victory.”
After years in which ever more forceful anti-abortion laws spread in the South, he said, “now the chain reaction can go in the other direction.”
Admitting-privilege requirements that are now in effect in Missouri, North Dakota and Tennessee may also come under new challenge. Five other states, besides Texas, impose some form of surgery-center standards on clinics performing abortions in the first trimester. The effect of the new ruling may have to be considered state by state, legal experts said.
While surgery-center laws outside Texas have forced a few clinics to shut down, the laws in several states including Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Virginia allow for waivers to the strict requirements, allowing some existing clinics to be exempt from rules governing, for example, storage space or flooring materials; the Texas law struck down Monday was, by comparison, inflexible.
Because the Supreme Court case was focused on provisions that were justified in terms of women’s health, the ruling is likely to have a less direct effect on some other contested abortion restrictions such as waiting periods or ultrasound requirements.
But the same standards would presumably apply to legal efforts to restrict nonsurgical, medication abortions in the name of protecting women. Battles are underway, for example, in some rural states over whether doctors can remotely prescribe abortion-inducing drugs. The greatest effect of the decision may come in the future, as the battle over abortion takes new forms.
Nancy Northup, the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, the New York-based legal group that represented Texas clinics before the Supreme Court, said, “This opinion makes it clear that the court is going to look at the stated justification for a law, and look at the burdens it imposes.”
“It’s about making sure that regulations are truly justified,” she said.
For now, the Supreme Court is expected to make sure that states where cases are pending, like Louisiana and Mississippi, follow the principles laid out on Monday.
*****
Readers: I’m soo sick of men making comments, no…decisions, about women’s health as if they have a vagina of their own and the ability to give birth. Last time I checked they don’t. That’s a nod to you, Paul Ryan, and all the other anti-abortionists who want to control women and their rights over their bodies. They aren’t concerned about protecting women’s health like they espouse.
How is it better for a woman’s health, when the state a woman resides in to get an abortion severely limits her access to safe and legal procedures? How is it better for a woman’s health when she is in a desperate situation and may resort to an unlicensed rogue practitioners because she has no other choice? How is it better for a woman’s health when all she wants is to have an abortion but is faced with stressful situations from abortion clinics who, discourage her desires, make her go through long waiting periods, and mandate fetal sonograms?
I don’t know about you, but if that’s your way of protecting my health, I want nothing to do with you, thank you. Just let me make my own decisions freely as I should be able to since abortion is legal.
I can’t believe that in this day and age we’re still talking about and fighting over this. We have the right to have an abortion but those who oppose are always trying to make it hard for women to exercise that right. I will echo Hillary’s tweet:
This is a victory and a good reason to celebrate. AND we aren’t done yet.
What’s on your mind? Blog me.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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June 28th, 2016 at 9:09 am
I like this bumper sticker so much I got me one, ” Republicans are the party of small government so they can fit inside a uterus”.
June 28th, 2016 at 9:17 am
Dhamouns – my sources say stop sitting around waiting for your regular contact – you need to attempt to hook up with the remnants of the skeleton crew already down here.
PrP
June 28th, 2016 at 9:17 am
Men need to quit using religion to get what they want without a persuasive argument. That’s why I believe in separation of church and state. Men keep your religion away from my uterus. If I cannot control my own body then I am a slave to those who can.
June 28th, 2016 at 9:20 am
You are damn right Carie#3. I am sick and tired to the “morality” of people who think they have the right to impose their brand of morality upon others.
June 28th, 2016 at 9:21 am
I know four Christian women who have had abortions. Only one that I know still regrets it, because it was the Pastor of the Church – her dad – that insisted. I haven’t been to Church in years although I still follow the teachings of Christ (Do unto others, etc.). When I last attended Church – several years ago – the message was that no Christian should ever have an Atheist friend. My Atheist friends have never told me to end my religious beliefs so I gave up Church. I still meet with fellow Christians, I just don’t do it at Church.
June 28th, 2016 at 9:24 am
Talk about infuriating; the Texas AG Keller “doesn’t appear to be taking its less-experienced female opponent seriously. As the case wound its way through the lower courts, Toti repeatedly had to remind the Texas attorneys that she is the lead counsel on the case. But they consistently directed communications to her co-counsel — a taller, slightly older man from the international law firm Morrison & Foerster. “They would always reach out to him and not even ‘cc’ me,” she said. “I would get back to the lawyers and say, ‘Here is our position,’ and the next time they would go back to him anyway.”
Toti’s co-counsel, Alex Lawrence, said the Texas attorneys are ignoring his colleague because she’s a woman. “I feel bad about it, but yes, it’s true,” he said in a phone interview. “They’re not comfortable with it completely. Maybe it’s a Texas thing, or maybe it’s just a man thing.” ”
Keller and his legal team, all male, trying to legislate and adjudicate women’s health issues, and then ignoring the female lead in the opposing legal team.
Conservatives and religious fundamentalists like Keller all want abortion to be illegal for the same reasons that they also wanted to keep women from voting: they want women to be forced to get pregnant without the opportunity for birth control, so they have to have children and therefore are dependent on men for their livelihoods. That maintains the male control over women, forcing women to do what men want, period end. It’s never been about the life of the unborn child; it’s always been about the lives of the women the men want to control. Abortion, like birth control, allows women to control their lives on their own.
That’s why the same people who hate abortion ALSO want to restrict birth control. If pro-lifers were so worried about the unborn children, they would advocate for as much birth control as possible. But that’s never been the case.
A female President Clinton will terrify these dipshit old-school rightwing men who need a frying pan to their heads. Karma.
June 28th, 2016 at 9:58 am
I agree with you Bill that the Texas attorneys were ignoring Stephanie Toti, because she was a woman even though she was the lead attorney. But I take issue with the generous excuse you gave for their disgusting behavior.
They didn’t do it because they were just “not comfortable” with working with a woman. They did it to dis her just as the republicans do Obama. It is a from of trying to establish that they are superior because they are men. Not unlike republicans who are white doing the same thing to Obama to perpetuate the illusion that they are superior because of the color of their skin.
You and others like you, not calling them on it preserves your subliminal claim to to the same. Shame on you and all men like you who pretend that it is okay for men to act in this manner because they have the excuse of not being comfortable with women.
It’s the same shit whites use to excuse racists’ behavior towards OTWs, We are told to be patient until whites become “comfortable” with treating us as equals.
Fuck that shit!
I have no intention of waiting until a dipshit feels that he or she is ready to treat me as an equal. Ditto for those other fucking excuses you used to excuse those misogynists creeps behavior towards women.
June 28th, 2016 at 10:12 am
Bill, that is very male of you to suggest, “…Maybe it’s a Texas thing, or maybe it’s just a man thing.”
It’s NOT a Texas thing because they are not the only males in Texas and not all men or even most of the men in Texas act that way towards women. And even if they did that doesn’t excuse the behavior of these men.
Correct action has to start somewhere. If change isn’t insisted upon, there will be no change.
June 28th, 2016 at 10:20 am
Bill#6, “…or maybe it’s just a man thing.”
So you’re saying it’s a man thing to be rude to a woman. Wow, I wonder how man men would agree with that.
June 28th, 2016 at 10:29 am
Bill#6, it is NOT man thing to be disrespectful to women. It may be a “man thing” within your social circle, but it is not universal by a long shot.
You are full of shit and you enjoyed the position of being teated with respect while your female colleague was being belittled. It gave you a job, because it was saying that a woman needed a man to act for her with men.
That is the problem with those type of men(if you can call them that) they try to hide behind lies that all men act the way they do.
I tend to believe what is often sited on this blog by women when they criticize misogynistic men. It is probably a result of them feeling inferior in the sexual organ department.
They feel that they need to control women to force them to accept them with their perceived sexual disadvantage.
June 28th, 2016 at 10:41 am
What’s up with the house nigger Thomas? He must be trying to channel his master, Scalia’s bullshit.
June 28th, 2016 at 10:50 am
Wow! I would love for Howie to elaborate on this.
26 Countries Gather In Hawaii For Massive War Game
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rim-of-the-pacific-2016-hawaii_us_5769a6e9e4b09926ce5cead1?section=
June 28th, 2016 at 4:43 pm
Great news again today coming from SCOTUS. They’ve declined to take up a challenge to a Washington state law that makes it illegal for pharmacies to refuse to dispense medications for religious reasons. Roberts, Thomas and Alito called the court’s refusal to hear the case “an ominous sign.” I call it a sign of common sense.
/SB
June 28th, 2016 at 9:23 pm
Social Butterfly#13, sounds like the R.A.T.s are sensing their demise.
June 28th, 2016 at 9:32 pm
Yes, yes, and yes, it looks like the R.A.T. court led by the head rat roberts will see the day religious zealots will learn that they cannot force others to accept their religious beliefs.
June 28th, 2016 at 9:50 pm
“If this is a sign of how our religious liberty claims will be treated in the years again, those who value religious liberty have cause for great concern,” the three dissenting justices said.
Those justices were the R.A.T.s on SCOTUS. They represent those who wish to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us in America.
Sorry, not this time rats.
June 29th, 2016 at 6:49 am
Make 2 passes rather than 3. ^1/6 left Triton for Nereid. That left ^2/6 on the Circle.
Caution 29*597
ovo
Igmi
June 29th, 2016 at 7:20 am
In past years, the World Economic Forum was allowed to bypass the Great Firewall and give participants at its summer Davos meetings unfettered internet access. But with the continuing tightening of control under President Xi Jinping, and lots of Chinese citizens at the meetings, that’s apparently no longer an option.
This is pretty remarkable, when you think about it. The Annual Meeting of the New Champions, now in its 10th year, is one of China’s biggest opportunities to showcase the country to the global elite. Yet the government is now perfectly willing to deny that global elite access to Google.
This strikes me as a useful indication of how China’s current leadership sees its relationship with the rest of the world. It wants to participate in globalization, but to do so entirely on its own terms. If that means it’s a place where it’s really difficult for outsiders to do business and live their lives, well, tough.
June 29th, 2016 at 7:28 am
Your Kitchen Sponge Is Full Of Bacteria. Here’s How To Clean It.
The video http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-clean-kitchen-sponge_us_5772c083e4b0352fed3e0d8d?section=