Oklahoma Supreme Court strikes down abortion law
Law would require abortion clinics to staff doctors with hospital privileges
The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 2014 law requiring an abortion clinic to have present a doctor who could get a patient admitted to a nearby hospital in case of emergency.
“We ... hold the statute unconstitutional because it creates an undue burden on a woman’s access to abortion, violating protected rights under our federal Constitution,” Justice Joseph M. Watt wrote in the 9-0 decision.
A longtime abortion doctor, Larry A. Burns, challenged the law. He complained he would have to close down his clinic, the Abortion Surgery Center in Norman, because he had not been able to get admitting privileges at a hospital.
I’m disappointed to see another pro-life law struck down by the courts. Like many bills passed in Oklahoma, this bill was designed to protect the health and welfare of the mother along with the life of the unborn, which always should be among our society’s priorities.”
Gov. Mary Fallin
“I’m disappointed to see another pro-life law struck down by the courts,” Gov. Mary Fallin said after the ruling. “Like many bills passed in Oklahoma, this bill was designed to protect the health and welfare of the mother along with the life of the unborn, which always should be among our society’s priorities.”
The Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the law a few days after it went into effect until its constitutionality was “fully and finally litigated.”
The law required abortion clinics to have a doctor on the premises who had admitting privileges at a hospital no more than 30 miles away. An Oklahoma County judge in February had found the law constitutional, saying “this requirement would advance the state’s compelling interest in patient care and safety.”
The ruling Tuesday had been expected because the U.S. Supreme Court in June ruled 5-3 against a 2013 Texas law with the same requirement. Clinics across Texas had been forced to close after the law there went into effect.
Oklahoma Supreme Court justices specifically agreed the Oklahoma law was “fatally flawed legislation” under the recent pronouncements by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Justices found the law would create a constitutionally impermissible hurdle for women who seek lawful abortions because many would be left without services if the Norman clinic closed.
The Abortion Surgery Center, for awhile, was one of only two facilities in Oklahoma that regularly did abortions. Two new facilities have opened in the Oklahoma City area this year.
Justices specifically rejected arguments that the law would protect women’s health. Watt wrote the evidence in the case “fails to persuade us” that the law does anything to advance or protect women’s health.
“In fact,” he added, the Oklahoma State Medical Association “indicated this bill would have the opposite effect and specifically indicated that it did not reflect the patient’s best interest.”
Burns was represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York-based legal advocacy organization. The center’s president and CEO, Nancy Northup, praised Tuesday’s decision as a “victory for Oklahoma women and another rebuke to politicians pushing underhanded laws that attack a woman’s constitutionally guaranteed right to safe, legal abortion.”
“We will continue to stand with Oklahoma women in beating back these relentless political schemes designed to make the right to safe, legal abortion a right that only exists on paper,” Northup said.
Justices also struck down the law as unconstitutional under the Oklahoma Constitution, agreeing that it violated a constitutional requirement that a legislative bill cover only a single subject.
State Sen. Greg Treat, the Oklahoma City Republican who wrote the law, complained Tuesday that justices have been misinterpreting the single-subject rule.
“I think they’ve used it to do their will and to be almost a quasi-legislative body making policy based off of using that very subjectively,” Treat said. “That’s a big concern of mine that I’m going to try to address.”