The case concerned Louisiana Act 620, which required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges in nearby hospitals. The court reversed the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in a 5-4 ruling, holding Act 620 was unconstitutional.[2]Click here for more information.
HIGHLIGHTS
The case: June Medical Services, a clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana, challenged Act 620 in court. Act 620 required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles of the facility where the abortion is performed. The federal district court issued a preliminary injunction. On appeal, the 5th Circuit lifted the injunction, which the U.S. Supreme Court then restored. While June Medical Services' lawsuit was ongoing, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt that a Texas law similar to Act 620 was unconstitutional. On remand, the district court held Act 620 was unconstitutional. On appeal, the 5th Circuit reversed the district court's ruling and denied an en banc rehearing.[3]
The issue: Whether the 5th Circuit’s decision upholding Louisiana’s law requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital conflicts with the U.S. Supreme Court’s binding precedent in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016).[3]
Louisiana Act 620 became law in June 2014. The law established requirements for doctors performing abortions, specifically that they be able to admit patients and provide diagnostic and surgical services to a hospital within 30 miles of the facility where the abortion is provided.[4]
In March 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the 5th Circuit's stay, restoring the original preliminary injunction. In June of that year, SCOTUS held in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt that a Texas law requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital was unconstitutional.[3]
After the U.S. Supreme Court decided Whole Woman's Health, the 5th Circuit remanded the case in June Medical Services v. Gee to the district court. On April 26, 2017, the district court ruled Act 620 as unconstitutional.
On September 26, 2018, a divided three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit reversed the district court's ruling and declared Act 620 was constitutional. On January 28, 2019, the 5th Circuit denied June Medical Services' petition for a rehearing en banc. The court's denial was also divided, 6-4.[3]
June Medical Services petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, arguing the 5th Circuit's ruling "conflicts with Whole Woman's Health in its result and its reasoning."[3]
Amicus brief from Congressional members
On January 2, 2020, 207 members of Congress—39 senators and 168 House members—filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the defendant, Louisiana Health Secretary Rebekah Gee.
The members argued (1) June Medical Services, and abortion providers generally, did not have the legal right to bring lawsuits on behalf of their patients; (2) the 5th Circuit's ruling was correct; and (3) the court should reconsider past precedents established in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
The petitioner presented the following questions to the court:
Questions presented:
Whether the 5th Circuit’s decision upholding Louisiana’s law requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital conflicts with this Court’s binding precedent in Whole Woman’s Health.[3]
The plaintiff abortion providers and clinics in this case have challenged Act 620 on the ground that it infringes their patients’ rights to access an abortion. The State contends that the proper parties to assert these rights are the patients themselves. We think that the State has waived that argument. …
Our dissenting colleagues suggest that this case is different because the plaintiffs have challenged a law ostensibly enacted to protect the women whose rights they are asserting. See post, at 25–26 (opinion of ALITO, J.); post, at 7 (opinion of GORSUCH, J.). But that is a common feature of cases in which we have found third-party standing. …
Turning to the merits, we apply the constitutional standards set forth in our earlier abortion-related cases, and in particular in Casey and Whole Woman’s Health. … In Whole Woman’s Health, we quoted Casey in explaining that “‘a statute which, while furthering [a] valid state interest has the effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman’s choice cannot be considered a permissible means of serving its legitimate ends.’” … We added that “ ‘[u]nnecessary health regulations’” impose an unconstitutional “‘undue burden’” if they have “‘the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion.’” … We went on to explain that, in applying these standards, courts must “consider the burdens a law imposes on abortion access together with the benefits those laws confer.” …
The District Court found that enforcing the admitting privileges requirement would “result in a drastic reduction in the number and geographic distribution of abortion providers.” Id., at 87. In light of demographic, economic, and other evidence, the court concluded that this reduction would make it impossible for “many women seeking a safe, legal abortion in Louisiana . . . to obtain one” and that it would impose “substantial obstacles” on those who could. …
We think that these findings and the evidence that underlies them are sufficient to support the District Court’s conclusion that Act 620 would place substantial obstacles in the path of women seeking an abortion in Louisiana. …
We turn finally to the law’s asserted benefits. The District Court found that there was “‘no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure.’” 250 F. Supp. 3d, at 86 (quoting Whole Woman’s Health, 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 22)). It found that the admitting privileges requirement “[d]oes [n]ot [p]rotect [w]omen’s [h]ealth,” provides “no significant health benefits,” and makes no improvement to women’s health “compared to prior law.” 250 F. Supp. 3d, at 86 (boldface deleted). Our examination of the record convinces us that these findings are not “clearly erroneous.” …
We conclude, in light of the record, that the District Court’s significant factual findings—both as to burdens and as to benefits—have ample evidentiary support. None is “clearly erroneous.” Given the facts found, we must also uphold the District Court’s related factual and legal determinations. These include its determination that Louisiana’s law poses a “substantial obstacle” to women seeking an abortion; its determination that the law offers no significant health-related benefits; and its determination that the law consequently imposes an “undue burden” on a woman’s constitutional right to choose to have an abortion. We also agree with its ultimate legal conclusion that, in light of these findings and our precedents, Act 620 violates the Constitution. ...
This case is similar to, nearly identical with, Whole Woman’s Health. And the law must consequently reach a similar conclusion. Act 620 is unconstitutional.[5]
Chief Justice Roberts filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
In his concurring opinion, the chief justice wrote:
“
I joined the dissent in Whole Woman’s Health and continue to believe that the case was wrongly decided. The question today however is not whether Whole Woman’s Health was right or wrong, but whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case. …
The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike. The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents. …
Stare decisis (“to stand by things decided”) is the legal term for fidelity to precedent. … Under principles of stare decisis, I agree with the plurality that the determination in Whole Woman’s Health that Texas’s law imposed a substantial obstacle requires the same determination about Louisiana’s law. Under those same principles, I would adhere to the holding of Casey, requiring a substantial obstacle before striking down an abortion regulation. …
Whole Woman’s Health held that Texas’s admitting privileges requirement placed “a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion,” independent of its discussion of benefits. … Because Louisiana’s admitting privileges requirement would restrict women’s access to abortion to the same degree as Texas’s law, it also cannot stand under our precedent. …
Stare decisis instructs us to treat like cases alike. The result in this case is controlled by our decision four years ago invalidating a nearly identical Texas law. The Louisiana law burdens women seeking previability abortions to the same extent as the Texas law, according to factual findings that are not clearly erroneous. For that reason, I concur in the judgment of the Court that the Louisiana law is unconstitutional.[5]
Today a majority of the Court perpetuates its ill-founded abortion jurisprudence by enjoining a perfectly legitimate state law and doing so without jurisdiction. As is often the case with legal challenges to abortion regulations, this suit was brought by abortionists and abortion clinics. Their sole claim before this Court is that Louisiana’s law violates the purported substantive due process right of a woman to abort her unborn child. But they concede that this right does not belong to them, and they seek to vindicate no private rights of their own. Under a proper understanding of Article III, these plaintiffs lack standing to invoke our jurisdiction. …
Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled. Because we have neither jurisdiction nor constitutional authority to declare Louisiana’s duly enacted law unconstitutional, I respectfully dissent. …
Plaintiffs lack standing to invoke our jurisdiction because they assert no private rights of their own, seeking only to vindicate the putative constitutional rights of individuals not before the Court. … Third-party standing is inconsistent with the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III. When a private plaintiff seeks to vindicate someone else’s legal injury, he has no private right of his own genuinely at stake in the litigation. Even if the plaintiff has suffered damages as a result of another’s legal injury, he has no standing to challenge a law that does not violate his own private rights. …
Even if the plaintiffs had standing, the Court would still lack the authority to enjoin Louisiana’s law, which represents a constitutionally valid exercise of the State’s traditional police powers. … The Constitution does not constrain the States’ ability to regulate or even prohibit abortion. This Court created the right to abortion based on an amorphous, unwritten right to privacy, which it grounded in the “legal fiction” of substantive due process, McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 811 (2010) (THOMAS, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). As the origins of this jurisprudence readily demonstrate, the putative right to abortion is a creation that should be undone. …
Because we lack jurisdiction and our abortion jurisprudence finds no basis in the Constitution, I respectfully dissent.[5]
Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Gorsuch. Justice Thomas joined except as to Parts III-C and VI-F. Justice Kavanaugh joined except as to Parts I, II, and III.
In his dissent, Justice Alito wrote:
“
The divided majority cannot agree on what the abortion right requires, but it nevertheless strikes down a Louisiana law, Act 620, that the legislature enacted for the asserted purpose of protecting women’s health. To achieve this end, the majority misuses the doctrine of stare decisis, invokes an inapplicable standard of appellate review, and distorts the record. …
The plurality concludes that the Louisiana law does nothing to protect the health of women, but that is disproved by substantial evidence in the record. And the plurality upholds the District Court’s finding that the Louisiana law would cause a drastic reduction in the number of abortion providers in the State even though this finding was based on an erroneous legal standard and a thoroughly inadequate factual inquiry. The chief justice stresses the importance of stare decisis and thinks that precedent, namely Whole Woman’s Health, dooms the Louisiana law. But at the same time, he votes to overrule Whole Woman’s Health insofar as it changed the Casey test.
Both the plurality and the chief justice hold that abortion providers can invoke a woman’s abortion right when they attack state laws that are enacted to protect a woman’s health. Neither waiver nor stare decisis can justify this holding, which clashes with our general rule on third-party standing. …
Contrary to the plurality’s assertion, there is ample evidence in the record showing that requiring admitting privileges has health and safety benefits. … For these reasons, both the plurality and the chief justice err in concluding that the admitting-privileges requirement serves no valid purpose. …
They also err in their assessment of Act 620’s likely effect on access to abortion. They misuse the doctrine of stare decisis and the standard of appellate review for findings of fact. … There is no reason to think that a law requiring admitting privileges will necessarily have the same effect in every state. As a result, just because the Texas admitting privileges requirement was found by this Court, based on evidence in the record of that case, to have substantially reduced access to abortion in that State, it does not follow that Act 620 would have comparable effects in Louisiana. …
This case features a blatant conflict of interest between an abortion provider and its patients. Like any other regulated entity, an abortion provider has a financial interest in avoiding burdensome regulations such as Act 620’s admitting privileges requirement. Applying for privileges takes time and energy, and maintaining privileges may impose additional burdens. See App. 1335. Women seeking abortions, on the other hand, have an interest in the preservation of regulations that protect their health. The conflict inherent in such a situation is glaring. … When an abortion regulation is enacted for the asserted purpose of protecting the health of women, an abortion provider seeking to strike down that law should not be able to rely on the constitutional rights of women. Like any other party unhappy with burdensome regulation, the provider should be limited to its own rights.[5]
In truth, Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), is not even at issue here. The real question we face concerns our willingness to follow the traditional constraints of the judicial process when a case touching on abortion enters the courtroom. … After overlooking so many facts and the deference owed to the legislative process, today’s decision misapplies many of the rules that normally constrain the judicial process. …
To arrive at today’s result, rules must be brushed aside and shortcuts taken. While the concurrence parts ways with the plurality at the last turn, the road both travel leads us to a strangely open space, unconstrained by many of the neutral principles that normally govern the judicial process. The temptation to proceed this direction, closer with each step toward an unobstructed exercise of will, may be always with us, a danger inherent in judicial review. But it is an impulse this Court normally strives mightily to resist. Today, in a highly politicized and contentious arena, we prove unwilling, or perhaps unable, to resist that temptation. Either way, respectfully, it is a sign we have lost our way.[5]
I join Parts I, II, and III of JUSTICE ALITO’s dissent. A threshold question in this case concerns the proper standard for evaluating state abortion laws. The Louisiana law at issue here requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the abortion clinic. The State asks us to assess the law by applying the undue burden standard of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992). The plaintiffs ask us to apply the cost-benefit standard of Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 579 U. S. ___ (2016). …
In my view, additional factfinding is necessary to properly evaluate Louisiana’s law. As JUSTICE ALITO thoroughly and carefully explains, the factual record at this stage of plaintiffs’ facial, pre-enforcement challenge does not adequately demonstrate that the three relevant doctors (Does 2, 5, and 6) cannot obtain admitting privileges or, therefore, that any of the three Louisiana abortion clinics would close as a result of the admitting-privileges law. I expressed the same concern about the incomplete factual record more than a year ago during the stay proceedings, and the factual record has not changed since then.[5]
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