Supreme Court Justices Overturn Texas Abortion Clinic Restrictions
The justices ruled, 5-3, that the provisions requiring doctors to have admitting privileges to a hospital and clinics to meet hospital-like standards of surgical centers create an "undue burden" for women who are trying to obtain the procedure.
Los Angeles Times:
Supreme Court Overturns Texas Abortion Restrictions
The justices, by a 5-3 vote, said Monday that Texas lawmakers went too far by imposing unnecessary regulations that had forced most of the state’s abortion clinics to go out of business. The decision is the court's clearest pronouncement since 1992 on abortion, and it makes clear that states may not impose health regulations that severely restrict the right to abortion.(Savage, 6/27)
The Washington Post:
Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Restrictions
The challenged Texas provisions required doctors who perform abortions at clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and said that clinics must meet hospital-like standards of surgical centers. Similar restrictions have been passed in other states, and officials say they protect patients. But abortion providers and medical associations say the rules are unnecessary and so expensive or hard to satisfy that they force clinics to close. (6/27)
USA Today:
Supreme Court Strikes Down Abortion Restrictions
“We conclude,” Justice Breyer wrote, “that neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes. Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, and each violates the Federal Constitution.” (Wolf, 6/27)
The New York Times:
Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Restrictions
Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. dissented. (Liptak, 6/27)
CNN:
Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Access Law
The ruling will have major reverberations on the presidential election, where the fate of the Supreme Court has been front-and-center after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February. Senate Republicans have refused to act on President Barack Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland, leaving the court with eight justices. (de Vogue and Berman, 6/27)