Washington D.C., Jun 29, 2020 / 08:07 am
The Supreme Court delivered decisions Monday in cases concerning life issues. Among three decisions issued by the court June 29, justices overturned a Louisiana state law seeking to hold abortion clinics to the same standards as other surgical centers.
In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Stephen Breyer, with Chief Justice Roberts filing a concurring opinion, the court found that the state's law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital posed substantial obstacles to a woman's access to abortion, without significant benefits to the safety of women. Having been initially blocked on appeal by a district court, the law was upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019.
Breyer wrote that the state's law was "almost word-for-word identical to Texas' admitting-privileges law" that the Court ruled against in 2016.
The district court's original ruling was correct to affirm that Louisiana's "admitting privileges regulation offers no significant health benefit," Breyer wrote, as well as its finding that the regulations "have made and will continue to make it impossible for abortion providers" to do so, thus putting "a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking an abortion."