Justices grant new cases for upcoming term, will tackle Louisiana abortion disputeSCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 10/4/2019
https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/10/justices-grant-new-cases-for-upcoming-term-will-tackle-louisiana-abortion-dispute/The Supreme Court was already scheduled to take on a range of high-profile and potentially controversial issues in the next few months, including federal protection for LGBT employees, the Trump administration’s decision to end the program known as DACA, and gun rights. This morning the Supreme Court’s new term, which starts next Monday, became even more momentous, with the announcement that, for the first time since the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court will tackle the hot-button issue of abortion. The justices agreed today to hear a challenge to a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions in the state to have the right to admit patients at a nearby hospital. In a late-night order last February, Chief Justice John Roberts provided the fifth vote needed to block the state from enforcing the law until abortion providers could file a petition seeking review of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upholding the law.
The justices’ announcement that they will weigh in on the constitutionality of the Louisiana law comes less than three and a half years after the court – following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia – struck down a similar law from Texas by a vote of 5-3. Texas had tried to defend the law by arguing that the admitting-privileges requirement was intended to protect the health of pregnant women, but Kennedy joined the court’s four more liberal justices in holding that the state had not provided any evidence to show that the admitting-privileges requirement actually served that interest. By contrast, the majority concluded, the requirement made it significantly more difficult for women to get an abortion.
The abortion providers have emphasized that the Louisiana admitting-privileges requirement is, by the state’s own admission, virtually identical to the Texas requirement that the court invalidated in 2016. Moreover, they add, if the law goes into effect, it would leave only one doctor performing abortions in the state during the early stages of pregnancy, and none after 17 weeks of pregnancy. But the court has changed since it struck down the Texas law: Justice Neil Gorsuch filled the vacancy created by Scalia’s death, and Kennedy retired last year, replaced by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. That left Roberts, who dissented in the Texas case, to join his more liberal colleagues in temporarily barring Louisiana from enforcing the admitting-privileges requirement.
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