Will the Supreme Court Deadlock on the Texas Abortion Case? - The Atlantic - 0 views
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Will the Supreme Court Deadlock on the Texas Abortion Case?
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If Justice Anthony Kennedy were a character from Lord of the Rings, he would be Treebeard the Ent—a giant walking tree who makes up his mind in his own time and then goes wherever he is going without worrying much about what’s in the underbrush.
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Together, those requirements will impel the closure of about 34 of the 40 abortion clinics in the state.
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That requirement even applies to “medical abortions”—meaning abortions achieved by giving a pregnant woman two pills, spaced between two and seven days later.
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The district court had concluded that the regulations were not imposed for any real medical purpose. Thus, it held, they imposed an “undue burden” (also called a “substantial obstacle”) on the right to choose abortion in Texas. The Fifth Circuit panel, however, reversed that judgment.
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Justice Stephen Breyer noted that a colonoscopy (which doesn’t need to be done in an ASC) is 28 times more dangerous than a pre-viability abortion.
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“If … this law is upheld,” Verrilli told the Court, “what you will be saying is that this right exists only in theory.”