The Supreme Court's 5-3 ruling on Monday to throw out restrictive Texas abortion laws in the landmark case known as Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt is a major victory for reproductive rights advocates, who have been fighting a wave of what they call "clinic shutdown" laws nationwide.
First enacted in 2013, the Texas laws rejected by the Court Monday had imposed numerous medical requirements on abortion providers, and had the effect of reducing the number of abortion clinics in the state from 40 to approximately 19. The law had required that doctors have admitting privileges at local hospitals, and that clinics meet hospital-like standards. Referred to as Targeted Regulations Against Providers (TRAP) laws, such restrictions have been proliferating in states around the country.
The resulting drop in abortion clinics has had "a disproportionate effect on women of color, young women, and rural women," said Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, during a press call earlier this month. Northrup's group represented the Texas women's clinic Whole Woman's Health in its Supreme Court challenge.
"There have been higher costs to women who seek the care," Northup said on the call. "They have to take multiple days off work, travel up to in some cases 200-300 miles to get to a clinic, obtain child care, experience a delay up to 20 days just to get an appointment."
The ruling has far-reaching implications for other states that have enacted TRAP regulations. According to the Guttmacher Institute, about 24 states have laws or policies that regulate abortion providers and go beyond what is necessary to ensure patients' safety; all apply to clinics that perform surgical abortion.
Proponents of the Texas law had argued that it was enacted for the protection, health, and safety of women and their families. Not so, argued reproductive rights and justice advocates before the Court, who cited a tremendous economic and emotional strain on women of limited means seeking reproductive health care in Texas. The state's clinic mandates had been compounded by such additional abortion restrictions as mandatory waiting periods and mandated ultrasounds.
"There was a woman who drove her RV, camped in parking lot of the Austin clinic with her husband and two children to accommodate the mandatory waiting period in order to have the abortion procedure," recounted Northrup in this month's conference call. "And it was the only way they could afford lodging and transportation to get the procedure done.
It was stories like this that motivated Whole Woman's Health staff members to fight the Texas law all the way to the the Supreme Court.
"It has been a long and arduous journey for Texans," Andrea Ferrigno, the clinic's corporate vice president, told the Prospect. "We embarked on this journey because we wanted to protect their rights and provide services in their communities."
Nevertheless, having closed half its clinics and laid off half its staff, Ferringo acknowledged, Whole Woman's Health will need some time to reach capacity again. "It's not a simple process to re-open clinics," Ferringo says. Nevertheless, she adds, the ruling means that "clinics that are open will remain open.
