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Supreme Court May Annul Abortion Rights in Louisiana Case
WASHINGTON A long-running argument before the Supreme Court on Wednesday could go a long way to reversing the right to abortion in the United States. It remains to be seen whether they will return in four years or 47 years.
An almost identical law in neighboring Louisiana is in court, and the prognosis for opponents of abortion has improved considerably. State officials argue that the facts on the ground as well as the legal issues call for a different outcome.
There is another reason: "This is a different court," says Steven Aden, legal director at Americans United for Life, who has been fighting for abortion restrictions for nearly five decades.
This is the court that three Republican presidents have built, the last being Donald Trump. His most recent associate judge, Brett Kavanaugh, replaced Anthony Kennedy, who provided the deciding vote in the Texas case that looked like a landmark in 2016. Not so much now.
Anti-abortion forces launched a frontal attack on the precedents of the Supreme Court, starting with the 2016 decision and dating back to Roe v. Wade in 1973, which legalized abortion nationwide.
Even though the country's abortion rate has dropped to its lowest level since Roe's decision, the rapid enactment of state laws imposing restrictions promises to generate more lawsuits at the top of the supreme court. Disputes focus on the timing and type of abortions, regulations on clinics and doctors, requirements for patients, even gender, race or disability of the fetus.
"The Supreme Court could really start to derogate abortion rights," said Elizabeth Nash, head of state affairs at the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank on productive rights.
This would result in a trend towards closure of abortion clinics, which has reduced the number of independent clinics by a third over the past eight years, from 510 in 2012 to 344 last year, according to the Abortion Care Network. Five states in Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia each have a clinic.
Louisiana, which leads the country with 89 abortion restrictions adopted since 1973, still has three clinics, in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. A judge of a federal district court has determined that the impugned law, which states that abortion providers must admit privileges in nearby hospitals, could force two people to close their doors.
KathaleenPittman, longtime administrator of the Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, said: "Roe becomes meaningless if she does not have access to abortion."
"Two different Americas"
Access depends on where you live. This is the concern of abortion rights advocates in the South and the Midwest.
Twenty-five states dominate the books of law with respect to "TRAP laws," or targeted restrictions on abortion providers. Legal challenges are pending in many of them, including Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Last year, states adopted 58 restrictions and 36 measures to make abortion more accessible, reported the Guttmacher Institute. While most "red" states have sought to block abortions after a certain number of weeks and to impose limits on patients and providers, "blue" states have gone the other way.
Last week, Virginia repealed decades-old restrictions, including 24-hour waiting periods and mandatory ultrasound tests. The Trump administration is fighting California for its requirement that most health plans cover abortion services. New York, Illinois, Washington, Oregon and Maine have similar laws.
"What is emerging here is what I think are two different Americas," said Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder and CEO of Whole Woman & # 39; s Health, which operates seven clinics in five states and has been the complainant winner in the Texas case.
When the law was enacted, only six of the 44 state abortion clinics met the new requirements. An Acourt injunction allowed about 20 people to stay open, but even after the High Court victory, most of those who closed have never reopened.
The Supreme Court decision in this case has made it more difficult for other states to impose restrictions without providing medical or scientific evidence. The judges extended the court's reasoning to other restrictions, such as limits on voting rights.
In Louisiana, state legislators and government officials have argued that the requirement for admission of privileges would not have as serious an impact. When the judges refused last February to let the law go into effect as court challenges continued, said Kavanaugh. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four liberal judges of the court to block the law.
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"We have no reason to believe that a clinic would close," said Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill, who will be speaking on Wednesday.
The state, supported by the Trump administration and many anti-abortion groups, argues that the law aims to improve health and safety measures in abortion clinics. "We should not substitute security for access," said Murrill.
Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights, who will discuss the other side on Wednesday, said hospital privileges were elusive for doctors who perform abortions and unnecessary when only 1 in 400 patients needs to be hospitalized .
Abortion rights advocates point out that most of the roughly 10,000 women who seek an abortion in Louisiana each year are poor and unable to travel long distances for overnight stays required by state regulations.
Anti-abortion appointments
Abortion is among the most emotionally difficult issues in court, which may explain why judges choose cases carefully.
It took almost 20 years after R. v. Wade before the court strengthened both the right to abortion and the right of states to impose certain restrictions in Planned Parenthood v. Casey from 1992. From 2000 to 2007, the court overturned a state law prohibiting late abortions, then confirmed a similar federal law.
The last trimester, judges upheld an Indiana law requiring the burial or cremation of fetal remains after an abortion. But they refused to consider the state's efforts to ban abortions based on sex, race or disability, as well as Alabama's efforts to ban a method of abortion specific to the second term.
The Louisiana statute was adopted in 2014 but quashed by a federal district judge after a trial three years later. He was resurrected in a 2-1 decision by a committee of the Federal Court of Appeal, and the full court of appeal voted 9-6 against the rehearing of the case. The judges appointed by Trump all voted with the majority.
Despite Roberts' decisive vote a year ago to delay implementation of the law, the court is likely to side with Louisiana. Roberts sided with Texas in 2016, and since then Kavanaugh and associate judge Neil Gorsuch have joined the court. A ruling in favor of Louisiana would lead to the commitment of homeTrump in 2016 to appoint anti-abortion judges.
"We think this could be a historic case," says Aden. "It would reset the table considerably across the country."
Abortion opponents consider Kavanaug to have the crucial fifth vote. He praised the dissent of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in Roe, and he expressed his dissent as a judge of the Federal Court of Appeal. of the 2017 decision authorizing an undocumented adolescent detained by the government to have an abortion.
Even with a conservative majority of 5-4, the court didn't show much interest in overthrowing Roe. Roberts prefers incrementalism, and Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018 called high court abortion decisions "precedent over precedent."
Miller says, "I'm sure Roberts' court isn't going to overthrow Roe."
It would be a silver lining for Pittman, but his immediate concern is to keep Hope alive.
"Much of my time has become involved in the fight against combat," says the 62-year-old administrator, who has worked at the clinic since 1992. "It has become very consumer. My daily work took a back seat. "
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