By Kevin Daley
The Supreme Court barred enforcement of a Louisiana law called Act 620 or the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act on a five to four vote Thursday night.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the high court’s liberal bloc to prohibit the law’s implementation over the dissent of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch noted their dissent but did not join the Kavanaugh opinion. The act was scheduled to take effect on Friday.
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The Louisiana measure provides that physicians who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Abortion advocates say the law is identical to a Texas regulation which the Supreme Court struck down in 2016 in a case called Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt.
Justice Samuel Alito delayed implementation of the Louisiana law by one week on Feb. 1. That order, called administrative stay, was necessary so that the justices could review court filings from each party. Alito hears emergency petitions which arise out of the 5th Circuit.
A federal trial judge found the law unconstitutional in view of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Texas case. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding that Act 620 created a tangible (but limited) benefit without seriously inhibiting abortion access.
Pro-choice groups counter that the law will leave just one abortion provider in the state. As such, they warn that Act 620 is effectively a stealth measure to eliminate abortion in Louisiana. . (RELATED: Forthcoming Biography Reveals New Details Of Roberts’s Obamacare Vote)
Louisiana’s abortion providers filed an emergency application at the high court asking the justices to temporarily lift the 5th Circuit’s decision in January. The Court granted that request Thursday night. The order, called a stay, will remain in effect until the Court processes a formal request from the abortion providers to review the 5th Circuit’s ruling. That process generally takes several months.
As is typical of orders of this nature, the majority did not give reasons for granting the stay.
In dissent, Kavanaugh said that the Court should have allowed implementation of the law to resolve the dispute over its effects on access. If physicians in the state’s three abortion clinics were still unable to attain admission privileges after a 45-day transition period, Kavanaugh said they could bring new claims against the state. On the other hand, if they successfully obtained admission privileges then abortion access would not be burdened and the dispute would terminate.
Thursday’s decision marks the second time that Roberts has sided with the liberal justices on an abortion case in the current term. The high court, with Roberts and Kavanaugh in the majority, denied review of three cases relating to Republican efforts to disqualify Planned Parenthood from Medicaid eligibility in December 2018.
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