On Friday afternoon, the United States Supreme Court said it would accept its first abortion case in eight years, which centers on a Texas law that restricts the availability of abortion clinics.
The petitioners in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole claim a Texas law enacted in 2013 would force about 75 percent of the state’s abortion services to close. Two provisions in the law require that doctors at clinics have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the clinics, and that clinics have facilities equal to those of an outpatient surgical center.
Texas officials believe the laws protect the health of the women seeking abortions by guaranteeing better care. the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with the state of Texas, but the Supreme Court stopped the law from going into effect until it could decide if it would accept an appeal.
The Supreme Court will decide two issues. First, it will look at if the appeals court properly handled a question about if the new restrictions would actually work to protect the health of women. The appeals court said it needed to defer to the Texas state legislature on that issue.
The second question is a broader one. The Court must decide it the law imposes an undue burden on women who seek abortions. The Court last ruled on this question in a 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, which reaffirmed the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973.
In the Planned Parenthood decision, a divided court said that states couldn’t place an undue burden on a woman’s right to have an abortion before fetal viability, and such burdens included “unnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion.”
The last abortion case before the Court was Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007, which upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.
In the upcoming case, Justice Anthony Kennedy is again expected to be the swing vote. He wrote the majority decision in the Carhart case, but he also co-wrote the plurality opinion in the Planned Parenthood case.
Arguments are expected to be heard in February or March.
