Washington – The United States 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, leaving anti-abortion advocates and the White House bitterly disappointed.
The 5-4 ruling, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joining the four liberal justices, 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 30 miles (48 km) of the clinic.
But Roberts indicated his vote was a reluctant one and signalled he may back other abortion restrictions in future cases, with some legal challenges already in the pipeline.
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.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany blasted the ruling, saying in a statement that “unelected justices have intruded on the sovereign prerogatives of state governments by imposing their own policy preference in favour of abortion to override legitimate abortion safety regulations”.
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. Roberts rejected some of the court’s analysis in the Texas ruling, which also set a precedent making it easier to challenge abortion restrictions that lacked evidence of health benefits.
“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. (Reuters)
