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Editorial: Supreme Court protects abortion rights

 
The U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Texas abortion restrictions should be good news for protecting abortion rights in Florida.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Texas abortion restrictions should be good news for protecting abortion rights in Florida.
Published June 28, 2016

The U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down Texas abortion restrictions should be good news for protecting abortion rights in Florida. The court on Monday overturned a Texas law requiring abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges and clinics to meet the same standards as surgery centers. Florida has less restrictive but similar requirements that are under legal challenge and set to become law Friday, and the courts should follow the Supreme Court's lead and put them on hold.

The Texas law and Florida's similar approach have the same objective: Cut off access to legal abortion. Republicans in the Texas legislature said the goal was to ensure abortions were performed in safe environments by qualified doctors. But that was happening before these onerous restrictions went on the books. "The great weight of evidence demonstrates that, before the act's passage, abortion in Texas was extremely safe with particularly low rates of serious complications and virtually no deaths occurring on account of the procedure," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the 5-3 ruling.

The law ordered doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of a clinic. But in order to obtain admitting privileges, doctors must have patients to admit. And because complications in abortions are so rare, abortion doctors are hard-pressed to meet that bar. The majority of justices saw through that ruse.

The provision requiring clinics to mirror surgery centers made no sense. By imposing standards for hallway widths, humidity control and floor finishes that have no bearing on how the procedure is performed, it promised to drive clinics out of business because of compliance costs. But the real burden, of course, was on women. Texas quickly went from 40 abortion clinics to 20 after the law took effect. And abortion advocates said that would have dwindled to seven or eight to serve the many thousands of patients needing services. The Supreme Court was considering the Texas case through the lens of its 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, which said abortion laws cannot place "an undue burden" on women seeking care. Shuttering clinics, hindering doctors and forcing women to travel hundreds of miles to obtain legal medical care surely failed that test.

A comparable bill passed by the Florida Legislature this year, HB 1411, does not impose rules on clinics, and it allows abortion providers to have admitting privileges or transfer agreements with local hospitals. But early versions of the legislation more closely resembled the Texas law, and the version Gov. Rick Scott signed contains plenty of other threats to women's health. The law cuts off Planned Parenthood from state health care contracts, including for services such as cancer screening, STD testing and preventive care; requires the state Agency for Health Care Administration to review 50 percent of abortion cases, threatening patient confidentiality for no medical purpose; and redefines the first trimester of pregnancy by relying on a woman's estimation of her menstrual cycle rather than an ultrasound, which is the scientifically accepted method. Planned Parenthood is challenging the law in court, and there is an emergency hearing this week.

With Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling, it should be clear that trying to erode the constitutional right to an abortion through indirect regulatory laws cannot stand in Texas — or in Florida.