KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: High Court’s Surprising Abortion Decision


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The Supreme Court surprised both sides in the polarized abortion battle Monday by ruling, 5-4, that a Louisiana law requiring doctors who perform the procedure to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital is an unconstitutional infringement of a woman’s right to an abortion.

As expected, the court’s four liberals in the case, June Medical Services v. Russo, said that the law did not provide any protections for women and merely made it harder for them to obtain an abortion and that it was nearly identical to a Texas law struck down in 2016. The four conservatives said the Louisiana law should be upheld, although that would have left the state with only a single abortion provider. The swing vote was Chief Justice John Roberts, who, in a concurring opinion, said he disagreed with the ruling in the Texas case but it is now precedent and thus should not be overturned.

This week’s panelists are Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico and Jennifer Haberkorn of the Los Angeles Times.

The panelists broke down the decision along several lines, including:

“What the Health?” is taking a break on Thursday but will return July 9.


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This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

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