The bureaucratic battle over Missouri's last abortion clinic
Alabama's abortion ban is blocked, Kanye West slams abortion, Joe Biden is rebuked by a priest
Hello! It’s Thursday, Oct. 31 (aka Halloween!). Here’s what’s been going on.
In the News
The future of Missouri’s last abortion clinic rests this week in the hands of a judge overseeing an administrative hearing in St. Louis. I’m going to take a minute on this story, because two important things are happening here.
The first is that the state is looking to shut down the clinic—defacto outlawing abortion in Missouri—through a bureaucratic maneuver. Instead of banning abortion (which it has also done), it’s trying to simply shut it down via a licensing dispute. This is actually an old, successful tactic used in other states; Kentucky is similarly trying to shut down its last clinic via the health agency; but we should be skeptical that Missouri will succeed in the short term because a federal case, and a potential U.S. Supreme Court case, would likely be the result if Missouri wins at the administrative level (administrative courts handle matters related to the procedures of state laws, not constitutional arguments).
The second important point is the implications of a health department driven by anti-abortion views, which can mean not only the targeting of abortion clinics through regulations, but also the ability to gather sensitive information. Randall Williams, the head of Missouri’s health department, has said abortion is legal “at this point in time” and suggested women travel out of state for an abortion if his department shuts down the clinic, and he used his office to collect and analyzed women’s menstrual cycles looking for incomplete abortions.
In another example of regulations closing clinics: The Ohio Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal form a Dayton clinic that is at risk of losing its license. The clinic has struggled to obtain a transfer agreement with a nearby hospital—a rule that mimics the purpose and effect of admitting privileges, the crux of the major U.S. Supreme Court case I talk about here each week.
Moving on: A federal judge blocked Alamaba’s near-total ban on abortions, as everyone expected he would, stating plainly that the law “defies the United States Constitution.” It was the most extreme abortion ban passed this year—and for decades—and each of those bans has now been blocked by a court.
Kanye West claimed Democrats have “brainwashed” black Americans into “making us abort our children,” among other things. He may or may not have confused Plan B, the emergency contraceptive, with abortion medication, but his rhetoric fits with African-American pro-life activists who view abortion as black genocide.
The Trump administration condemned references to “sexual and reproductive health” and “safe termination of pregnancy” during discussion of a U.N. resolution on women, peace and security. Democrats say the move may have broken a law prohibiting the use of foreign assistance for lobbying over abortion.
Former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was denied communion over his pro-choice stance this Sunday—a priestly strategy that could see a lot less eucharist being handed out, since 56 percent of Catholics think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Michigan Democrats are hoping to expand access to abortion through a package of new bills.
Pro-choice advocates in Wisconsin are hoping their new Democratic governor can defend abortion access by vetoing anti-choice bills and expanding public funding for abortions in cases of rape and incest.
Photographic interlude
Here’s something pretty: Mardi Gras, 2018—better than Halloween.
The 2020 SCOTUS case—a timeline
Your weekly dive into a pivotal case, this week a timeline of the lawsuit.
In January or February, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS to us abortion/law nerds, which now includes you) is expected to hear arguments in a potentially monumental abortion rights case: June Medical Services v. Gee. The case has been brewing since 2014. Here’s a brief timeline:
2013 — Texas passed a law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the clinic where they work. Within a year, half of the state’s 40 clinics had closed.
Spring 2014 — Rep. Katrina Jackson, a popular Democrat, submitted an identical law to Louisiana’s House, and it passed the legislature overwhelmingly.
August 2014 — The Center for Reproductive Rights sued the state over the law on behalf of a Louisiana abortion clinic. A U.S. district judge granted a preliminary injunction, blocking the state from implementing the law.
January 2016 — The court declared the law, called Act 620, unconstitutional.
February 2016 — The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, considered one of the most conservative in the nation, granted an emergency appeal from Louisiana to stay the lower court’s decision. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling allowed the law to take effect immediately, and two of the state’s clinics instantly stopped abortion procedures, thrusting clinics across the state into chaos.
March 2016 — The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Fifth Circuit’s decision after the clinics appealed. By then the Supreme Court was already considering the constitutionality of Texas’s law, passed in 2013.
June 2016 — The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas’s law in the landmark Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt case. Pro-choice advocates saw the decision as a stinging rebuke of state laws passed in the name of women’s health but that serve to strangle abortion access.
August 2016 — The Fifth Circuit kicked Lousiana’s law back to the district court for the case to be reconsidered in light of Whole Woman’s Health.
April 2017 — The district court again found Louisiana’s laws unconstitutional and entered a permanent injunction against the state, barring it from enforcing the law. Louisiana appealed to the Fifth Circuit.
September 2018 — The Fifth Circuit again overturned the lower court and upheld Louisiana’s law, despite the Whole Woman’s Health ruling.
January 2019 — A full panel of the Fifth Circuit’s judges refused to hear an appeal from the clinics (the judges made the decision just three hours after the appeal had been filed).
February 8, 2019 — Hours before Act 620 was set to take effect, the Supreme Court stepped in and stayed the law, saving the clinics from closure and suggesting that the Court was likely to hear an appeal.
October 2019 — The Supreme Court announced it would hear oral arguments in June Medical Services v. Gee. Lawyers expect the hearing will be scheduled for January or February of 2020.
Resources
For research on abortion and reproductive health in the U.S. and internationally, including abortion laws and regulations, see the Guttmacher Institute and Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH).
For information on abortion clinics and providers, see the National Abortion Federation, which has an incomplete list of providers nationally. Physicians for Reproductive Health works on policy, lawsuits and advocacy. The Reproductive Health Access Project helps primary care physicians provide complete reproductive care.
SisterSong advocates for reproductive justice for women of color, non-binary and minority folks. There’s also the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.
The Center for Reproductive Rights and the ACLU fight reproductive rights lawsuits.
NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood Federation of America advocate for reproductive health and rights, and Planned Parenthood and its affiliates also file lawsuits on behalf of their clinics, doctors and patients.
(Let me know if you think you know a national organization that should be listed here.)