The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics, reasserting a commitment to abortion rights over fier...
The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics, reasserting a commitment to abortion rights over fierce opposition from dissenting conservative justices in the first big abortion case of the Trump era.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined with his four more liberal colleagues ruling that the law requiring doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals violates the abortion right the court first announced in the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
In two previous abortion cases, Roberts had favored restrictions.
The 5-4 ruling represented a major victory for Shreveport-based abortion provider Hope Medical Group for Women in its challenge to the 2014 law.
The measure had required doctors who perform abortions to have a sometimes difficult-to-obtain formal affiliation called "admitting privileges" at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic.
The Louisiana law is virtually identical to one in Texas that the court struck down in 2016.
5-4 ruling: Chief Justice John Roberts flipped position on abortion to back liberals Ruth Bader Gisnburg, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer in the decision, ruling that the Louisiana restrictions were so identical to the last landmark case that they had to be struck down
Pro-life anger: The decision was protested immediately outside the Supreme Court by anti-abortion demonstrators
'The result in this case is controlled by our decision four years ago invalidating a nearly identical Texas law,' Roberts wrote, although he did not join the opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer for the other liberals.
In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote: 'Today a majority of the Court perpetuates its ill-founded abortion jurisprudence by enjoining a perfectly legitimate state law and doing so without jurisdiction.'
Roberts' decision to join the court's liberal wing is the latest during a summer when he also joint a 6-3 majority on gay civil rights and 5-4 ruling against Trump abolishing DACA.
In the DACA case, Roberts and the four liberals rejected administration arguments that the 8-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program is illegal and that courts have no role to play in reviewing the decision to end DACA.
That ruling, too, rested largely on procedural grounds. Roberts, nominated by President George W. Bush, wrote for the court that the administration did not pursue the end of the program properly, writing that the government failed to provide a 'reasoned explanation for its action.'
The abortion ruling was the first for the Court since the Republican Senate confirmed President Trump's two conservative appointments: Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Trump campaigned heavily on using his presidential power to try to shift the court to the right on abortion and other issues, and promised to choose nominees only from a list of conservative nominees he published before the election.
The conservative Heritage Foundation immediately blasted Roberts. 'This is the latest in a series of judicial power grabs from the Chief Justice and the liberal wing of the court,' the group said,' the Atlantic reported. 'Justice Roberts, a so-called 'conservative,' is clearly no longer running things — it’s now the Kagan Court,' the group said, referencing Barack Obama nominee Elena Kagan.
Roberts authored his own opinion explaining why he joined the majority, although he did not sign on to the opinion of the four liberal justices.
He sought to explain why he dissented agains the court's ruling in the similar Texas abortion cases but joined the majority in the Louisiana case before the court.
'I joined the dissent in Whole Woman’s Health and continue to believe that the case was wrongly decided. The question today however is not whether Whole Woman’s Health was right or wrong, but whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case,' he wrote.
He noted the case was 'nearly identical.'
'The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike. The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents,' Roberts wrote.
The writing echoed what he had testified during his confirmation hearings in 2005, when he got grilled by the late Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania about 'stare decisis.'
'I do think that it is a jolt to the legal system when you overrule a precedent. Precedent plays an important role in promoting stability and evenhandedness. It is not enough that you may think the prior decision was wrongly decided,' Roberts testified.
Senators were trying to solicit any scrap of information about how he might rule on whether to uphold the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.
Trump had already erupted in fury at the DACA ruling earlier this month.
'These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!' he wrote immediately after the ruling
'I will be releasing a new list of Conservative Supreme Court Justice nominees, which may include some, or many of those already on the list, by September 1, 2020. If given the opportunity, I will only choose from this list, as in the past, a Conservative Supreme Court Justice... Based on decisions being rendered now, this list is more important than ever before (Second Amendment, Right to Life, Religous Liberty, etc.) – VOTE 2020!' Trump wrote.
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