The U.S. Supreme Court did the right thing on Monday when it struck down unduly burdensome restrictions placed on Texas abortion providers. We agree that the restrictions have nothing to do with ensuring that abortions are safe, as their supporters argue, and everything to do with making them more difficult to obtain.
The Texas restrictions were part of a national wave of Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws recently enacted by conservative Republicans to undermine Roe v. Wade by chipping away at the rights of abortion providers. Wisconsin, in fact, enacted one of the regulations struck down on Monday—the requirement that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, which Gov. Scott Walker quietly signed into law on July 5, 2013, during the holiday weekend. Last year, a federal appeals court affirmed a U.S. district court’s decision to block the Wisconsin law. On Tuesday, the court refused to review the Walker administration’s appeal of that decision. But a host of Walker-era restrictions meant to deny women the ability to be in charge of their health and well-being remains on the books.
If history is any guide, Monday’s ruling won’t stop those committed to outlawing abortion. Since the right wing needs Roe v. Wade to energize their base and doesn’t have the votes on the court to overturn it, conservatives will continue striking at it with targeted hits that seem innocuous on the surface but are quite damaging in reality. But these anti-abortion legislators should take heed of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s warning in her separate concurrence on Monday. Ginsburg wrote that if the court respects the precedent of Roe and other court decisions on abortion, TRAP laws that “‘do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion,’ cannot survive judicial inspection.” In other words, conservatives can try to outlaw abortion, but the court and the Constitution will stop them from succeeding.
