U.S. top court blocks abortion law
ROBERTS SIDES WITH LIBERALS, REJECTS LOUISIANA’S STRICT RESTRICTIONS ON DOCTORS
The U.S. Supreme Court defended abortion rights in a major ruling on Monday by striking down a Louisiana law placing restrictions on doctors who perform the procedure, dealing a blow to anti-abortion advocates.
The 5-4 ruling, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joining the four liberal justices in the majority, represented a victory for Shreveport-based abortion provider Hope Medical Group for Women in its challenge to the 2014 law.
The measure had required doctors who perform abortions to have a sometimes difficult-to-obtain formal affiliation called “admitting privileges” at a hospital within 48 km of the clinic.
Two of the three clinics that perform abortions in Louisiana, a state of about 4.6 million people, would have been forced to close if the law had taken effect, according to lawyers for Hope Medical Group.
President Donald Trump’s administration supported Louisiana in the case. Anti-abortion advocates had hoped the Supreme Court, with its 5-4 conservative majority, would be willing to permit abortion restrictions like those being pursued by Louisiana and other conservative states.
“Today’s ruling is a bitter disappointment,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List.
The decision, authored by liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, marked the second time in four years the court ruled against an “admitting privileges” requirement.
In 2016, the court struck down a Republican-backed Texas law that mandated admitting privileges and required clinics to have costly hospital-grade facilities, finding the restrictions represented an impermissible “undue burden” on a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. The two laws, Breyer wrote, are “almost word for word identical,” meaning the court must reach the same result.
There is sufficient evidence that the Louisiana measure “would place substantial obstacles in the path of women seeking an abortion in Louisiana,” Breyer added.
Roberts dissented in the 2016 case, called Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, but said he voted with the liberals on Monday based on the court’s tradition of respecting its precedents.
“I joined the dissent in Whole Woman’s Health and continue to believe that the case was wrongly decided. The question today however is not whether Whole Woman’s Health was right or wrong, but whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case,” Roberts wrote.
But Roberts did question some of the court’s analysis in the Texas ruling, suggesting he may side with his conservative colleagues in future challenges to abortion restrictions.
Consequently, the positive reaction to the ruling from abortion rights group was muted.
“We’re relieved that the Louisiana law has been blocked today but we’re concerned about tomorrow,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented the Louisiana clinic.
“After today’s decision, we can breathe a sigh of relief,” added Alexis Mcgill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, another abortion rights group.
Writing in dissent, conservative Justice Samuel Alito said the Louisiana and Texas rulings were similar only because “the abortion right recognized in this court’s decisions is used like a bulldozer to flatten legal rules that stand in the way.”
Roberts also sided with the liberal justices in two other important rulings this month. One found that gay and transgender people are protected from workplace discrimination under federal civil rights law. The other blocked Trump’s bid to end a program that protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children.
Several other cases involving legal challenges to state abortion restrictions are heading toward the justices that could provide other avenues for its conservatives to roll back access.