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Breaking: SCOTUS Strikes Down Texas Abortion Laws
Via NBC:
Published in LawThe U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down one of the nation’s toughest restrictions on abortion, a Texas law that women’s groups said would have forced more than three-quarters of the state’s clinics to shut down. Passed in 2013, the law said clinics providing abortion services must meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers. And it required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Since the law was passed, the number of clinics providing abortion services in Texas dropped to 19 from 42. Opponents said that number would fall to ten if the Supreme Court upheld the law.
The Center for Reproductive Rights called the law “an absolute sham,” arguing that abortion patients rarely require hospitalization and that many patients simply take two pills.
[…]
The court’s decision will affect similar laws in twelve other states, some now on hold because of court challenges. The restrictions in Texas represented a new front in efforts to restrict abortion by focusing on protecting the health and safety of the mother rather than the life of the fetus.
Are you seeing some real future advantage here or just a good chance that it will be easy to point out the inconsistencies when the justices go against their own reasoning?
Are we winning? No? Then time to change your tactic.
I’ll rely on the Ricochet Bar Association for that, but it seems like opinion that could be used in the future depending on how the opinion was written.
And this while many in the political opposition knew what was right but went along to get along.
Note:
Deleted at author's request.I doubt it will be ever used again. The Left is never consistent except for its political ends and this decision will only apply to their Leftist Feminist Sacrament.
Just one more straw.
That reads like they are saying they are striking down the law because they believe people will circumvent it. Is that your take?
Jamie,
Wow. Just amazing logic. One might apply the same principle to murder, rape, and robbery. No need for any laws at all.
Regards,
Jim
That, and that they no longer believe in the regulatory state’s effectiveness. That’s a pretty stunning revelation from a progressive.
Most people don’t know what the abortion procedure is and are only really for abortion in the abstract. Check out this video showing people changing their minds when seeing a video describing the actual procedure
Oh, does the Supreme Court still use the Constitution as a basis for their decisions? I thought they just turned to Anthony Kennedy and let him make stuff up.
Where did Kennedy find his “undue burden” on women in the Constitution? The Supreme Court is used as a tool to change our culture for the left – it is laughable to think that any of the liberal judges ever consult the Constitution.
That is interesting. I wonder if that is a part of the opinion that could be resurrected in a decision favoring conservatives later, if that ever happens again.
Thanks for reading that and sharing it.
This is the video Live action showed those people in my previous comment
How do we challenge the capricious legal nature of decisions like these? It seems to me that the state has the right to regulate nearly every aspect of healthcare – to the point of making it illegal in many cases to treat oneself. Abortion, or, seen more broadly, women’s reproductive rights, seems to be the only exception. It seems to me that we need some suits filed that apply the privacy rational to other medical decisions. It’s not clear to me which of three possible outcomes would occur:
It seems to me that any of those would be a victory to some degree.
I don’t know but the RBA can probably enlighten us. I read it because my attorney wife made the point that I should spout off about legal decisions without actually reading it first. I hate it when she’s right.
Ah, you’re looking at that and thinking “Wow, SCOTUS actually recognizes that regulations are useless or even harmful”. Cast that thought aside. You’re dealing with utter hypocrites here. There can never be regulation of abortion, their Holy of Holies. Everything else can and should be regulated to death. If you were expecting any kind of consistency, sorry to disappoint you.
Their legal philosophy is simple: What I like and support is mandatory and untouchable. What I don’t like is to be squeezed to death or banned outright.
I’ve seen this video – its devastating. I cannot imagine how hard your heart would have to be to remain unaffected by it.
I guess the Court prefers back alleys and coat hangars.
But its precedent now. Its legal reasoning that conservatives could use persuasively to argue in front of the court on other matters related to state regulation of things.
The RBA has been slacking of late. Too much focus on billable hours and not enough time enlightening and/or arguing with the Ricochet legal laity.
At the very least I think it undermines the entire leftist case for gun control.
A few facts to throw into the mix.
Dentists, oral surgeons, dermatologists, podiatrists, and other specialists do surgery in their offices that is comparable in risk to abortions and don’t have to meet these requirements. If our wonderful representatives in Texas were concerned about patient safety, they would have made the law cover them.
The admitting privileges requirement is a sham. If you have an emergency at your doctor’s office, the ambulance will take you to the nearest trauma center, where the doctor may or may not be on staff. Also, there are places in the state where there are no hospitals within 30 miles.
This was the medical equivalent of a bill of attainder.
It may give the gun owners a wedge to attack restrictions on gun sales and ownership – if the Supreme Court’s makeup changes.
From page 21 of the slip opinion, Breyer, J., writing for the Court:
Anyone familiar with the Texas state legislature care to enlighten us as to why the drafters of HB 2 overlooked this key element of the Court’s upholding the partial birth abortion ban in 2006? No legislative findings, are you kidding me? No “Wherefore, having determined that not having admitting privileges etc. is bad for health because . . ” So, so simple to do.
Yes but whether the law was good or not has no bearing on its constitutionality.
These are issues for the state and did not need to be taken to the Supreme Court as there were no constitutional violations in the law. The State is allowed to determine health standards for clinics and other businesses. Now the Supreme Courts has now stuck its nose into state regulatory laws which will now effect the entire country.
Unfortunately, it seems that precedent is largely a one way street these days and it is always aimed in the direction the Ruling Class wants to go. Likewise, I cannot wait for the belly laughs that will ensue the first time a conservative tries to argue:
(Thank you, Mr. Roberts.)
The court is already gone for the foreseeable future and probably for any relevant timeframe associated with a now fading republic…it’s time to stop pretending otherwise (i.e. 2016 presidential politics).
We know that gun control laws and regs get circumvented so that makes them not necessary.
I haven’t read the whole decision but it seems to be that the following can all be true:
Is unsavory the same as unconstitutional?