The Supreme Court has agreed to take up an abortion case that could effectively leave Louisiana with only one abortion clinic.
The Court had earlier said that it would review the case closely when it agreed to block the law that requires physicians performing abortions to have hospital ‘admitting privileges’.
The Louisiana law is almost the same as a Texas law that had been abolished in 2016 by the Supreme Court. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh recently met to discuss numerous appeals that have piled up. One of the most important among those pending appeals involves the abortion regulations in Louisiana.
The case relates to the standard originally established by the Court in 1992 that states are free to regulate abortion, but they cannot act in a way that places an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion.
A district judge who had initially heard this case as well as abortion service providers in Louisiana said that under the new law, probably one or two of the three abortion clinics in the state would have to shut down.
According to the observations made by these and some other experts, at most two doctors may be available who could meet the requirements of this law.
