Texas May Not Restore Lost Abortion Clinics Despite SCOTUS Ruling

“Every day Whole Woman’s Health treats our patients with compassion, respect and dignity”, said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder and CEO of the group.

The Texas measure, like the Oklahoma law, required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

A separate section of the 2013 law required abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital no more than 30 miles away.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the opinion for the majority. She pointed specifically to Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. Scalia has not yet been replaced, so only eight justices voted.

Burton, the House sponsor of HB 1411, said the three provisions had nothing to do with the Texas law.

Activists demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, Monday, June 27, 2016. The number of clinics in Pennsylvania also dropped after a more limited version of the stricken law was enacted here in 2011.

Gov. Scott Walker signed Wisconsin’s admitting privileges bill into law on July 5, 2013, just one month after it was introduced.

Supporters of the Texas law argued it raised the level of care for women, but opponents said it would have closed all but a handful of clinics in Texas. The ruling answers critical questions about how far states, including Missouri, can go in engineering abortion regulations that clearly are created to impede access in the name of protecting women’s health.

“I am pleased to see the Supreme Court protect women’s rights and health today”, he said. He called the decision a devastating blow for women’s safety and health.

Only two-tenths of 1 percent of abortions in the study resulted in major complications (requiring surgery or a blood transfusion), compared with the 0.35 percent serious complication rate for colonoscopies. However, the ruling does not necessarily mean that new clinics will open as a result.

The justices split largely along liberal-conservative lines in their emergency orders, with the court’s conservative justices voting repeatedly to let the law be enforced.

By striking down this and other similar laws, the court has done a great service.

That complaint, in part, targets a section of the law that seeks to prevent state agencies, local governments and Medicaid managed-care plans from contracting with organizations, like Planned Parenthood, that own, operate or are affiliated with clinics that perform elective abortions.

Planned Parenthood has said it will no longer be able to offer the abortion pill at its Little Rock and Fayetteville health centers if the law takes effect; it does not offer surgical abortions at those clinics.