# Texas abortion law struck down **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 27, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520 "2016-06-27T15:17:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/21 "2016-06-28T18:44:57Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s more than that. It establishes a precedent that governments may not attempt to use regulatory policy to kill otherwise legal businesses. IANAL, but I think that’s reaching a bit far. I imagine government can regulate away a business to which citizens do not have a right. Abortion is covered as a constitutionally protected right. Motorcycle-driving, OTOH, is not. I somewhat doubt the Supremes would overturn a law that required motorcycles to have airbags, even if that’s unnecessary and main purpose would be to make motorcycles illegal. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/22 "2016-06-28T18:46:58Z")
Abortion being a right certainly played a role, but laws have to have a rational basis if someone is harmed and thus has standing, as in your example, the motorcycle industry. The Supreme Court can of course decide for themselves how this precedent applies, but I think any corporate lawyer would be committing malpractice by not citing this decision if faced with destruction due to regulations designed solely to bring about their destruction. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/23 "2016-06-28T18:57:51Z")
If it’s legitimate for abortion providers to meet the requirements that hospitals have to meet it’s legitimate to require any churches offering communion to meet the health code regulations that all the other food service operators meet. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/24 "2016-06-28T19:00:52Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > If it’s legitimate for abortion providers to meet the requirements that hospitals have to meet it’s legitimate to require any churches offering communion to meet the health code regulations that all the other food service operators meet. Don’t forget the wine/liquor license if they actually use wine. Would altar boys fall under child labor laws? ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/25 "2016-06-28T20:40:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Does each ridiculous anti-abortion law have to be struck down individually by SCOTUS, or does the Texas decision also invalidate laws in some other states? It invalidates some of them. Some laws that have been waiting to be tested have already been chucked out. The rest might need to be individually challenged and tossed. Since the SCOTUS decision is only about facility and doctor requirements, I’m not sure if the useless “waiting period” that costs women a lot of effort and time, the requirements that doctors recite factually untrue information about abortion to women, the medically nonsensical transvaginal ultrasound (“I’m just going to shove this huge thing into you for no reason”) requirements, or the most troubling, the requirements for potentially dangerous and medically not-necessary drugs in Utah will be covered by this decision. It hopefully will make the legal environment less accepting of such behavior on the part of politicians trying to control women’s bodies. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/26 "2016-06-28T22:14:19Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > No. The Texas law had nothing to do with safety of medical procedures. It dealt with things like the width of hallways, the size of custodial closets and the angles at which doors opened. Half of the abortion clinics in the state were closed because of these asinine regulations. But government passes what you or I might consider asinine laws all of the time. The remedy is to elect new representatives who stop passing ridiculous laws, not have courts invalidate them. I mean, why do I have to post the federal minimum wage in my business when none of my employees make that wage, or can google it themselves if they are unsure? Should a court strike down that law as asinine? And as you said, only half of the clinics closed down. Customers had unfettered access to go to the remaining clinics to exercise their purported constitutional right to abortions. The Court, however, said that it placed an “undue burden” on the right. Like Scalia said in his dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, what in the hell is an undue burden? What baseline do we have to determine what burdens are due? If a law makes a woman travel one mile further from home to get an abortion is that an undue burden? What about 10 miles? 100 miles? 1,000 miles? What if a law increases the cost of an abortion by five percent? 50 percent? 5,000 percent? The problem with the standard is that a court somewhere along the line will have to set a line and say that the Constitution requires that clinics be no more than 287 miles from 87% of the population (or some other similarly arbitrary number). The standard is not a standard at all, but merely reflects the personal opinion of judges as to the desirability of certain legislative policy choices. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/27 "2016-06-29T00:29:11Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > And as you said, only half of the clinics closed down. Customers had unfettered access to go to the remaining clinics to exercise their purported constitutional right to abortions. > > The Court, however, said that it placed an “undue burden” on the right. Like Scalia said in his dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, what in the hell is an undue burden? What baseline do we have to determine what burdens are due? > > If a law makes a woman travel one mile further from home to get an abortion is that an undue burden? What about 10 miles? 100 miles? 1,000 miles? So a woman’s right to an abortion is “purported”? Do you have a “purported” right to freedom of speech or religion? There are now only about 20 abortion clinics in the entire state of Texas. Some women are hundreds of miles away from one. That’s not an “undue burden”? What if your kids had to travel hundreds of miles to exercise their right to go to the nearest school? The bottom line is this: You don’t want women to have abortions, regardless of the U.S. Constitution, and you’ll find any excuse to prevent them from having one. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/28 "2016-06-29T00:35:47Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > The problem with the standard is that a court somewhere along the line will have to set a line and say that the Constitution requires that clinics be no more than 287 miles from 87% of the population (or some other similarly arbitrary number). > > The standard is not a standard at all, but merely reflects the personal opinion of judges as to the desirability of certain legislative policy choices. The standard is that they need to show a compelling reason why the right needs to be restricted. While the state argued that “protecting women’s health” was the compelling reason, the court found that “there was no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure,” and that it therefore constituted an “undue burden” on their constitutional right to an abortion. If a state can show a compelling reason to restrict the right to abortion, they can argue that before the court. > [@](#): > > If a law makes a woman travel one mile further from home to get an abortion is that an undue burden? What about 10 miles? 100 miles? 1,000 miles? What is the compelling reason for the law? The court will allow rights to be restricted if the reason is compelling enough. “The state doesn’t want people to have abortions, and will try to restrict them by any means necessary,” is not a compelling reason to restrict a constitutional right. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/29 "2016-06-29T01:34:59Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Would altar boys fall under child labor laws? Sex workers? 😛 > [@](#): > > So a woman’s right to an abortion is “purported”? Do you have a “purported” right to freedom of speech or religion? It does not thrill me that the right to bear arms has a more explicit Constitutional foundation than the right to privacy. ---
**Author:** ![spamforbrains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@spamforbrains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spamforbrains)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/30 "2016-06-29T04:46:45Z")
> [@](#): > > The standard is that they need to show a compelling reason why the right needs to be restricted. While the state argued that “protecting women’s health” was the compelling reason, the court found that “there was no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure,” and that it therefore constituted an “undue burden” on their constitutional right to an abortion. Exactly. It doesn’t matter how far women had to travel-the law, like all of the TRAP laws, had NO basis to it whatsoever. It had no legal, medical, or economic rationale supporting it. Its only intent was to make women jump through hoops in order to get abortions, to which they are legally, medically, and morally entitled. The law wasn’t preventing abortions, either, except among the poorest of the poor; most women just went to Mexico and bought abortion pills over the counter, which you can do there, but poor women unable to manage that trip due to finances were in dire straits and some were reaching for coathangers and the like. Abortions are one of the safest medical procedures ever invented. Medical abortions, the woman actually has it at home-she takes a pill and has a heavy menstrual period at home. The so-called “surgical” abortions take about 5 minutes, do not involve any actual surgery, and have close to zero complications. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2016, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520/31 "2016-06-29T05:29:52Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Kennedy is a disappointment. Ginsburg, Breyer et al. have a consistent philosophy. I disagree with it, but at least you can see where their philosophy is rooted. > > Kennedy believes that the Constitution: 1) requires abortion so definitively that a state may not require doctors performing them to have admitting privileges to a hospital, 2) allows schools to discriminate based upon race, but only if it is a good kind of racial discrimination (he believes this after nearly 30 years of believing the opposite; I must have missed a constitutional amendment somewhere), and 3) requires states to allow same sex marriage. > > He believes that the federal government may not outlaw the possession of guns near schools, but may outlaw the possession of marijuana throughout the entire country. > > His opinions are short on law but rich in verbosity. At least this opinion was written by Breyer and I can intellectually disagree with it instead of suppressing anger at Kennedy’s drivel. > > I’ve said it before, but why is it that when Dems nominate Supreme Court Justices, they get solid votes. Your side never has to worry about one of the four liberals betraying you. > > Our side has had O’Connor, Kennedy, Souter, and sometimes Roberts. > > Sometimes I feel like the president in The Pelican Brief after looking at a list of questionable nominees and saying “Get all of this shit out of here. I want solid, white, conservative, Protestant males who aren’t gonna stab me in the back!” > > Obviously, I’m joking, but why can’t Republicans pick Justices like the Dems can? Well, here’s one answer: > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It’s possible that the current Republican political philosophy is sufficiently removed from sound judicial philosophy that it’s increasingly difficult to find judges who’ll toe the party line. And to add to that, think about what you just said here, joking or not: “I’ve said it before, but why is it that when Dems nominate Supreme Court Justices, they get solid votes. Your side never has to worry about one of the four liberals betraying you.” How on earth does the Supreme Court come to have “sides”? Is it supposed to be some sort of political extension of Congress? The fact is that in the current political situation it does have sides, and has become a blatantly political body, if not always absolutely politically reliable. The fact of the matter is, as surprising as it may be to many Americans, in most nations there is little discernible politics in Supreme Court rulings and the political inclinations of individual justices are often both undiscernible and irrelevant. The questions that need to be asked include how and why this ideological divide has come about in SCOTUS, and most importantly, which “side” is it that is the more ideological, more interested in enacting legislation from the bench than in sound jurisprudence? It might be hard to make a slam-dunk case either way but there are certainly strong hints, for instance in the ACA rulings. In the original major ruling in 2012 (_National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius_), Roberts surprised observers by siding with the “liberals”. Had Roberts suddenly become a liberal? It was widely speculated that Roberts was driven by a concern for his long-term legacy and didn’t wish to see the court over which he presided branded as an unthinking arm of the Republican Party instead of a court of justice. _King v. Burwell_ in 2015 was even more extreme – a case so frivolous it should never even have been allowed to waste the court’s time. Yet if the three wingnuts had had their way – Scalia, Thomas, and Alita, the ones you would no doubt regard as wonderfully “consistent” with the conservative cause – a completely frivolous suit that was nothing more than empty machinations by a couple of fanatical ideologues – those three ideologues would have overruled the will of Congress and the will of the electorate and essentially dismantled and rendered unworkable one of the most important pieces of legislation of the new millennium and suddenly rendered millions without health care. Maybe that’s why Roberts and Kennedy are “unreliable” in your book. Maybe because they have a conscience and some sense of judicial responsibility. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/texas-abortion-law-struck-down/758520.md?page=1)