After Supreme Court Agrees to Hear First Abortion Case With Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, Warnings Right-Wingers Could 'Decimate' Access in Louisiana

Reproductive rights groups on Friday emphasized the importance of legal precedent after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging an anti-choice Louisiana law—the court’s first abortion rights case since President Donald Trump’s appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, joined the bench and shifted the court to the right.

“If the Supreme Court fails to follow precedent and upholds Louisiana’s anti-abortion law, it could make getting an abortion virtually impossible in the state.”
—Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood

Act 620, a 2014 Louisiana law that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, is similar to a Texas law the Supreme Court struck down in 2016. Such measures—which critics call “TRAP” (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) laws—have become popular among right-wing legislatures trying to circumvent Roe v. Wade and restrict access to abortion care.

“These excessive and unnecessary government regulations—an ever-growing trend among state legislatures—increase the cost and scarcity of abortion services, harming women’s health and inhibiting their reproductive choices,” according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is challenging Act 620. “These laws jeopardize women’s access to safe, legal, high-quality reproductive healthcare and represent a backdoor attempt by politicians to end legal abortion access.”

In a statement Friday responding to the high court’s decision to hear the Louisiana case, June Medical Services v. Gee, Center for Reproductive Rights president and CEO Nancy Northup pointed to the court’s ruling in the Texas case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, which was also brought by the center.

“Louisiana is openly defying the Supreme Court’s decision from just three years ago, in which they found an identical Texas law unconstitutional,” declared Northup. “We are counting on the court to follow its precedent; otherwise, clinics will needlessly close and there will be just one doctor left in the entire state to provide abortion care.”

“Louisiana has tried everything under the sun to decimate access to abortion care,” said Kathaleen Pittman, clinic administrator at Hope Medical Group, a plaintiff in the case. “The situation here is already dire and this law would be the last straw for most of the remaining clinics. We’re hopeful that the court will recognize how devastating this law would be for women in our state.”

Alexis McGill Johnson, acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, warned in a tweet that if the court fails to follow its precedent, “it could make getting an abortion virtually impossible in the state.”

In September of 2018, a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals defied the Texas ruling and upheld the Louisiana law in a 2-1 decision. In February, Chief Justice John Roberts—who dissented in the Texas case—joined the Supreme Court’s four liberals justices for an interim ruling that extended a stay temporarily blocking Act 620 while abortion providers pursued an appeal.