Supreme Court asked to uphold abortion rights

WASHINGTON -- Women's health care providers in Texas asked the Supreme Court Thursday to overturn a federal appeals court decision that could shut down 75% of the state's abortion clinics and lead to similar restrictions in other states.

The threat posed to all but 10 of the state's clinics by a law passed in 2013 makes it likely that the high court will once again weigh in on an issue that has divided the nation for more than 40 years,

The justices have twice blocked the law from taking effect while appeals continued, most recently in June by a 5-4 vote in which the court's most conservative justices dissented. That makes the legal battle lines clear for a potential showdown in the term beginning next month.

The Supreme Court upheld the right to abortion in the landmark Roe v. Wade case of 1973. Two decades later, it ruled in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that states could impose restrictions for health reasons if they did not pose an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions. The court has since dealt with a variety of specific issues, including allowing states in 2007 to ban so-called "partial birth" abortions.

The Texas law requires abortion clinics to employ doctors who have admitting privileges at local hospitals and to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers. Its challengers claim the restrictions are meant to limit abortions rather than improve health care and would force all but 10 clinics to close in a state where about 60,000 women seek abortions annually.

Before the law was passed, the state had more than 40 clinics. That number has dwindled to 18. By comparison, California has about 500 abortion clinics, and New York has about 250.

"The right at issue in this case is of exceptional importance, and the ultimate disposition of this case will have a profound effect on the lives of thousands of women and their families," the abortion providers said in their petition.

Texas lawmakers and anti-abortion activists claim the law is intended to make abortion clinics and procedures safer without forcing women to travel too far for services. All the state's major metropolitan centers still would have at least one operating clinic, they say.

The state, backed by the appeals court, argued that traveling about 150 miles to obtain an abortion is not an undue burden. Women in west Texas who would not have a clinic even that close could travel into New Mexico, they said.

"Most women in Texas will not have to travel any further than they do right now in order to obtain abortions," the state attorney general's office argued successfully at the appeals court level.

Another case from Mississippi also is pending at the Supreme Court. The state wants the justices to overturn a decision by the same appellate court that blocked a law which threatened to close the state's only remaining clinic. The justices could agree to hear that case, but the one from Texas is considered more likely.

In recent years, the justices have refused to hear abortion cases from North Carolina and Arizona that were won by supporters of abortion rights. Other cases are heading toward the high court from Alabama, Wisconsin and elsewhere. Any case the justices agree or decline to hear is certain to have nationwide impact.

"What happens in Texas won't stay in Texas," said Amy Hagstrom-Miller, CEO of Whole Woman's Health, the lead plaintiff in the case. "I think we have to ask the question, do we want the rest of the country to look like Texas?"