Supreme Court abortion

SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS TEXAS LAW RESTRICTING ABORTION ACCESS

 

By Miriam Raftery

June 27,2016 (Washington D.C.) – A Texas law that sought to shut down most of the state’s abortion clinics, forcing some women seeking the procedure to drive hundreds of miles, has been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court as unconstitutional in a 5-3 ruling.  The decision is expected to impact at least 25 other states that have enacted similar restrictions.

The law required abortion clinics to meet surgical-center operating standards and for doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.  Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, has said that the state’s goal was to “protect innocent life, while ensuring the highest health and safety standards for women.” But the court’s majority found just the opposite—that medical risks for women would rise as a result of the law.


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SUPREME IRONY IN HIGH COURT’S RULING ON ABORTION PROTESTS

 

East County News Service

Photo: Anti-abortion protestors at a Mississippi abortion clinic

June 26, 2014 (Washington D.C.) – Today the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics in Massachusetts violate the free speech rights of protesters.  But ironically, the high court has its own, far wider 100-foot-wide buffer zone to keep protesters away from the Supreme Court.

Massachusetts passed its law to protect abortion workers and patients after a gunman killed two abortion clinic receptionists and wounded five others at two area clinics in 1994.    Violence against abortion providers has occurred elsewhere, notably the murder of Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who provided abortions in Wichita, Kansas.

Similar laws are on the books in other states, including California. But abortion opponents argued that such restrictions violated their First Amendment free speech rights.


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