It's a momentous moment of vital importance, and a gigantic victory for women's reproductive rights! In a final ruling on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Supreme Court finds Texas' obstacles to abortion access unacceptable. More, plus, the best quotes from the ruling, after the jump.
In the most important abortion case in 25 years, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 to strike down a 3 year old abortion Texas law that forced half of the state's abortion clinics to close due to restrictive regulations. The decision strengthens the constitutional right to abortions, established in 1973 in Roe v. Wade, and will have sweeping implications for abortion regulations, specifically for the 12 other states that have adopted similar restrictions to Texas.
Breyer, joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, wrote that
"the surgical-centre requirement, like the admitting privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions and constitutes an 'undue burden' on their constitutional right to do so".
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt was functionally about overturning Roe v. Wade and reinstituting state bans on abortion. The case challenges HB2, the 2013 Texas law that requires abortion clinics to meet the standards of surgery centers, and requires it's physicians to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. These requirements are not only medically unnecessary, but near impossibly for most facilities to comply with. The law was passed to seem as if it were protecting the health of women, but in reality the law has nothing to do with health and safety, but instead is a disguised attempt to shut down abortion care facilities and put an end to abortion altogether.
"It is beyond rational belief that HB2 could genuinely protect the health of women," Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote.
"This fight isn't over: The next president has to protect women's health. Women won't be 'punished' for exercising their basic rights," presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton wrote on Twitter.
