Issuing its most sweeping statement on abortion in decades, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Texas law that sharply curtailed the number of abortion clinics in the nation’s second most populous state.
The 5-3 decision is expected to have a broad impact: Other states have passed measures similar to the one in Texas and advocates argued even additional abortion restrictions - such as some in Georgia - might also now be in jeopardy. The ruling could also reverberate loudly in the coming presidential election where a vacant high court seat hangs in the balance.
The Texas law required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges to nearby hospitals and also said facilities that perform abortions must be walk-in surgical centers. Since the law was adopted, the number of clinics performing abortions in the state have plummeted.
Supporters argued the measures were needed to protect womens’ health but on Monday the court’s majority disagreed.
“We conclude,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote, “that neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes. Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, and each violates the federal Constitution.”
Breyer was joined by the court’s liberal-leaning justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan as well as Anthony Kennedy, frequently the court’s swing vote. The court’s conservatives - Chief Justice John Roberts along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito - dissented.
Thomas argued that the court had twisted the law to arrive at its desired result.
“The Court should abandon the pretense that anything other than policy preferences underlies its balancing of constitutional rights and interests in any given case,” he wrote.
“As the Court applies whatever standard it likes to any given case,” he continued, “nothing but empty words separates our constitutional decisions from judicial fiat.”
Emboldened by the win, abortion rights advocates said Monday the court had handed them a huge tool with which to fight similar abortion measures being considered in states from Mississippi to Wisconsin to Oklahoma. They said that could include fetal pain laws, like one adopted in Georgia in 2012. That law - which lowers the abortion threshold from a fetus that is 24-weeks to one that is no more than 20 weeks - is now being appealed.
Georgia does not have a Texas-style mandate on admitting privileges but some local advocates had worried that a high court ruling upholding the Texas statute would encourage state legislators to push for a similar measure here. Georgia currently has 14 abortion clinics, most of them in metro Atlanta. That tally doesn't include private physicians, who may also perform the procedure.
“There were tears of joy in my eyes today that women win,” said Staci Fox, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast.
“This ruling sends a clear message to our general assembly members that it’s not the state’s job to step in and create obstacles to a woman’s right to health care,” Fox said.
Emily Matson, executive director of Georgia Life Alliance, said the decision was disappointing but “the real error committed is not legal but moral.”
“Our highest Court continues to ignore and devalue the rights of the unborn child in the abortion transaction,” she said.
Nancy Northrup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said she was hopeful the decision would stop “this game of whack a mole” where states pass laws that are ultimately struck down.“These politically motivated, medically unnecessary laws have only one purpose,” said Northup during a press conference Monday afternoon. “Politicians cannot use deceptive means to shut down abortion clinics.”
The Texas law, which had cut the number of abortion clinics in half from just over 40 to just under 20, had made it “flat out impossible” for some women in that state to have an abortion, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder, president, and CEO, Whole Woman’s Health.
Even so, Hagstrom Miller said while the ruling was an affirmation of her clinic’s work, it would be difficult for many clinics to resume business quickly. Many lost their buildings or leases, let go of staff and surrendered their licenses after the law was enacted.
“The legal ruling happens right now, but the process to undertake it is going to take some time,” Hagstrom Miller said during the press conference.
Advocates said they will use the ruling right away to fight everything from a similar Mississippi law, currently before the Supreme Court, all the way down to “women’s right to know” laws, such as Georgia’s. Those laws require abortion providers to give women information about abortion alternatives.
“We will take this fight state by state to repeal laws that challenge the right to abortion,” said Cecile Richards, President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Eric Segall, who teaches constitutional law at Georgia State University, said there was a message in the ruling for states that try to put up barriers to abortion without directly attacking the laws that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 43 years ago were constitutional.
“They … called them out,” Segall said of the opinion shutting down the Texas law.
But he predicted abortion opponents will continue to look for ways to circumvent Roe v. Wade. “They will find other ways,” Segall said.
Zemmie Fleck, executive director of Georgia Right to Life, said women should be “concerned that politicians and judges are willing to sacrifice their safety in order to promote a political agenda.”
“There’s no reason to celebrate placing politics above women’s safety,” Fleck said.
Officials from both sides said the ruling highlights the stakes in the upcoming election. The death of Antonin Scalia, a reliable conservative, has created a high court vacancy. The Republican majority has refused to move on President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Scalia, appellate court judge Merrick Garland.
“It’s a great, great, great statement to the citizens of Georgia that it does matter who’s elected president,” state Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, said.
“If this doesn’t resonate, I don’t know what else does.”
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle would not comment directly on the courts ruling, instead praising the number of “pregnancy resource centers” in the state.
“The positive alternatives these centers offer women across Georgia are the type of advancements I’ll continue to fight for, increasing women’s access to care and reducing the rate of abortions statewide,” Cagle said in a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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