Health

Supreme court likely to rule on Louisiana abortion case months before 2020 election


The US supreme court will hear a challenge to a Louisiana abortion restriction, which could have broad implications for women’s reproductive freedom. The case is likely to be decided just four months before the 2020 presidential election.

The Louisiana restriction requires doctors at the state’s three remaining abortion clinics to seek admitting privileges to local hospital emergency departments.

Abortion rights advocates have long argued such requirements are duplicative, because emergency departments are already barred from turning away patients. The court struck down a nearly identical law just three years ago in Texas, leading reproductive rights advocates to believe that this Louisiana case is an effort to gut a woman’s right to abortion.

Given that recent decision, advocates urged the court to strike down the law without hearing arguments. Instead, the court took the unusual measure of hearing the case, called June Medical Services, LLC v Gee, whose facts were remarkably similar to a very recent decision.

“It’s no accident that on the anniversary of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the anti-choice majority on the supreme court is taking up a case challenging our fundamental reproductive freedoms,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of Naral Pro-Choice America.

“Today’s decision to review a case that is virtually identical to a case that was settled just three years ago is further proof that Donald Trump has paid back his debts and then some to an anti-choice minority that put him in office,” said Hogue.

Both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association oppose laws like Louisiana’s as medically unnecessary. In 2016, the court found the Texas law did not help “even one woman obtain better treatment”.

Since the case three years ago, the composition of the supreme court has changed dramatically. When Trump took office, the court was split between four generally liberal votes, four generally conservative votes, and on matters of abortion one swing voter – Justice Anthony Kennedy.

When Kennedy retired last year, the Senate confirmed Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a pitched battle highlighting reproductive rights. Kavanaugh has a limited judicial history on abortion, but is a conservative Catholic expected to limit abortion rights given the chance.

In January, a district appeals court voted not to get involved in the Louisiana case, setting up the supreme court appeal. A month later, supreme court justices decided to keep the case on hold, with the normally conservative chief justice, John Roberts, siding with the court’s liberal members.

For Roberts, it was a rare vote against an abortion restriction in more than 13 years as chief justice, which court observers believe is a reflection of his deeply held belief that the court should not overturn recent precedent or it risks being seen as partisan.

Arguments in the Louisiana case are expected this winter, as Democrats choose a nominee for their party. Republican statehouses are likely to be energized by the court’s decision to take up the case, and pass further abortion restrictions.

Women have had a constitutional right to abortion since 1973, when the supreme court decided Roe v Wade. In 1992, the court ruled states could enact limits on abortion rights, as long as they do not place an undue burden on women’s rights. In 2016, the court ruled the nearly identical Texas law did just that.

This new case is likely to test the court’s appetite for overturning recent precedent.

“Access to abortion is hanging by a thread in this country, and this case is what could snap that thread,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

“There’s only one reason the court would not strike down the Louisiana law and that is because Justice Kennedy, who voted to protect abortion access just three years ago, has been replaced with Justice Kavanaugh,” she said. “This is what we’ve warned about – the Trump administration and anti-abortion state politicians will not stop until they have gutted our rights and our freedoms.”



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