The most serious threat to abortion rights right now is a Louisiana law - and it's heading to the SC

By Bruce Hamilton


Recently the ACLU of Louisiana filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights challenging a law that would decimate access to abortion in Louisiana.

The stakes could not be higher.

This will be the first abortion case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court since President Trump’s appointment of conservative justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. If the Louisiana law is upheld, it would upend the precedent set by a similar case out of Texas just four years ago and threaten the fundamental right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade.

June Medical Services v. Gee challenges a Louisiana law that requires doctors who work at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. This is a medically unnecessary requirement that would shutter every abortion clinic in the state but one. Like similar laws around the country, the Louisiana law is an abortion ban in disguise. Designed to look like an attempt to protect women’s health, this law’s true intent is to close clinics and eliminate access to abortion.

Legal factfinding and evidence from numerous other cases confirms that the Louisiana law would significantly burden people’s ability to get an abortion in Louisiana. In fact, every district court to have examined the effects of comparable admitting-privileges laws has reinforced this determination.

Read more: https://thelensnola.org/2019/12/12/the-most-serious-threat-to-abortion-rights-right-now-is-a-louisiana-law-and-its-heading-to-the-supreme-court/