First Step
Supreme Court decision could lead to pro-life win
This week, the state of Texas scored a remarkable win in the fight against abortion. It’s a preliminary win, to be sure, but it confirms what we have said in previous editorials about breaking new ground as opposed to trying the same old strategies that have repeatedly failed.
As most readers will recall, back in June Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat, came to national prominence when she launched an 11-hour filibuster to block restrictive abortion legislation.
The law was not passed in that session. And now Davis is a candidate for governor based largely on that fleeting victory.
Gov. Rick Perry immediately called a special session and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed the bill. The governor signed it into law.
The law required abortions to be performed in ambulatory surgical centers by doctors who have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles of the center. It also required abortion doctors to follow a Food and Drug Administration protocol for early stage abortion drugs that dates from the year 2000.
Opponents challenged the law in court and U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin ruled “the act’s admitting-privileges provision is without a rational basis and places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus.”
However, the judge allowed the 2000 FDA protocol to remain in place.
The state appealed to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which last week allowed the restrictions on doctors and clinics to go into effect pending arguments in the case.
(The same week, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal from the state of Oklahoma after the state’s highest court overturned a similar law requiring the outdated protocol for chemically induced abortions. That puts Texas’ similar law in jeopardy.)
Abortion-rights activists asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on the physician and clinic law, hoping the court would side with the original court ruling and block the state from enforcing the law. Didn’t work out that way. On Wednesday, the court ruled 5-4 that Texas could enforce the law.
“It would flout core principles of federalism by mandating postponement of a state law without asserting that the law is even probably unconstitutional,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority.
“Reasonable minds can perhaps disagree about whether the Court of Appeals should have granted a stay in this case,” he added. “But there is no doubt that the applicants have not carried their heavy burden of showing that doing so was a clear violation of accepted legal standards.”
It’s important to remember this ruling does not establish the law as constitituional. The justices only ruled on whether enforcement could continue. The case now goes back to the 5th Circuit. Arguments are expected in January.
But it is the first step in what may go down as one of the most significant abortion decisions since Roe v. Wade. And this time the final call might on the side of life.