Why the Texas Abortion Clinics May Remain in Limbo

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http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a54649/texas-abortion-case-supreme-court/


Why the Texas Abortion Clinics May Remain in Limbo

​The Supreme Court just heard the biggest abortion case in nearly 25 years, but it may not resolve anything anytime soon.






Why the Texas Abortion Clinics May Remain in Limbo
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By Robin Marty
Mar 2, 2016

Lawmakers, doctors, and activists on both sides of the abortion debate filled the sidewalks in front of the Supreme Court in the hours leading up to and during oral arguments for Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt. While the impact of the final ruling may be diminished by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia and the eight-person court he has left behind, that didn't dampen the enthusiasm of hundreds of abortion rights supporters from across the country who arrived by the busload to be on site for the biggest reproductive rights case since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

Inside the building itself, all attention was on Stephanie Toti, senior counsel for Center for Reproductive Rights. Toti was serving as lead litigator for the team representing Texas clinic owner Amy Hagstrom Miller, who sued the state of Texas over HB 2, the 2013 bill requiring, among other things, that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at local hospitals and that clinics meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers (ASC), like wider hallways, specifically sized "operating" rooms and other medically unnecessary building code rules – restrictions that have led to clinics across the state to close.

Justice Alito and, to a smaller extent, Chief Justice Roberts, pursued lines of questioning with Toti and later U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli that focused on a lack of substantive proof that extensive regulations result in clinic closures, and that lack of access to a clinic is an undue burden – the level of access that the Supreme Court ruled during Planned Parenthood v. Casey could not be undercut – if it means that remaining clinics may be "safer" for those who undergo an abortion procedure. Meanwhile Justice Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Stephen Breyer, the progressive wing of the court, mainly questioned the veracity of claims that abortion is unsafe, that the laws are needed to provide a better medical experience for pregnant patients, and that closing clinics won't overload those clinics that remain or make clinics too far away for many patients to travel to terminate a pregnancy.

"What is the benefit of having to go to an ambulatory surgical center to take two pills?" Ginsburg asked Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller, when questioning the medical necessity of the laws. "The complications generally arise when she is back home." She scored a second point later when she asked Keller why he was including travel distance for Texas patients to go to a clinic in New Mexico, where there are no such laws in effect. "If it's all right for the women of El Paso, why is it not all right for the women in the rest of Texas?" she asked.

It was likely swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy who drew the most attention, however, as lawyers and analysts tried to discern based on his questioning whether he would side with the left wing of the court and strike down the Texas laws as an undue burden, or side with the conservatives and see them as a constitutional restriction that safeguards the health of a patient ending a pregnancy. One idea he surprised many by suggesting was the possibility of remanding and sending the case back down the court chain..............................