The following is from a Los Angeles Times editorial:
It's disappointing that the Supreme Court denied a request to temporarily block an onerous new abortion law in Texas from taking effect while a federal appellate court determines whether the law is constitutional. The high court's decision could force as many as a third of the abortion clinics in Texas to close, creating hardships for thousands of women seeking to terminate their pregnancies.
The Supreme Court's decision was the wrong one. Now supporters of abortion rights must turn their attention back to the appellate court, which we hope will declare the underlying law unconstitutional.
The law, signed by Gov. Rick Perry in July, requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where they work. Without those doctors working, about a dozen abortion clinics in Texas will be forced to close and about 20,000 women a year will be unable to get abortions, according to abortion rights advocates.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel first ruled the law unconstitutional and issued an injunction against it. The judge wrote that whether an abortion provider had admitting privileges had no impact on the care that women received if they went to hospital emergency rooms after abortions.
On the other hand,requiring admitting privileges for doctors put "a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion," he wrote. Some could be forced to travel 100 miles or more to find an open clinic, advocates have said. Within days of his ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of his injunction, thereby letting the law go into effect.
The Texas law is not, as state legislators have argued, an attempt to keep women safe. It is an attempt to curtail their access to abortion. If it passes judicial muster, other states that oppose abortion rights will pass similar laws to deny women their constitutional rights. The courts should rule against this deceptive law.