Supreme Court about to issue most important abortion decision in quarter century

At issue is Texas HB2, which put unreasonable restrictions on abortion clinics in an effort to drive them out of business.

The Texas law at issue in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the case current pending before the Supreme Court, is the culmination of this strategy by abortion opponents. Masterminded by Americans United for Life, a sophisticated group that drafts model legislation for state lawmakers eager to restrict access to abortion, Texas’ HB2 imposes expensive architectural and other requirements on abortion clinics and often-difficult-to-obtain credentialing requirements on abortion providers.

On the surface, HB2 appears to be a rather ordinary series of health regulations. It’s defenders argue that HB2’s requirement that abortion clinics comply with the costly standards Texas imposes on “ambulatory surgical centers,” for example, will make these facilities safer for women by bringing them into compliance with standards that are already imposed on many other facilities that perform surgeries.

If a court digs just a few inches below the surface, however, it rapidly becomes clear that the the law imposes potentially crippling burdens on abortion clinics, often with no apparent health benefits whatsoever. The ambulatory surgical center requirement, for example, applies even to clinics that perform no surgeries all at — many clinics only offer medication abortions, which are induced by pills taken orally.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.