For the first time in eight years, the U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing an abortion case caused by a conflict with state regulations regarding abortion clinics.
The justices are set to hear arguments over a law in Texas that could cause the number of abortion clinics in the state to drop to 10. The justices have up until June to make a final decision.
The Supreme Court once blocked portions of a state's law on abortion clinics and did not take action on an appeal made by Mississippi that would have closed down its only abortion clinic.
The Supreme Court will be hearing about a dispute over two provisions in the abortion law, signed by Gov. Rick Perry last 2013, the first of which requires abortion facilities to be set up like surgical clinics and the second only allows clinicians to perform the procedure if the clinics have admitting privileges at one of the local hospitals.
The Supreme Court is to decide whether or not the provisions will cause an undue burden on women's constitutional right to abortion. The enforcement of the latter provision forced the shutdown of more than half of the 41 abortion clinics Texas used to have.
Law authors and supporters claim that these provisions were meant to protect women's health and safety, while those who are opposed claim that it is a poorly veiled attempt to stop abortion in the state. The lack of abortion clinics in Texas has already forced women to drive to New Mexico to have their procedures done there.
"There's an undue burden when women have to drive 250 miles one way, take off two days of work and get child care in order to have a procedure that is protected by the Constitution," said Amy Hagstrom Miller, who owns four abortion clinics in Texas.
Jennifer Dalven of the American Civil Liberties Union's Reproductive Freedom Project also supported Hagstrom Miller's view, adding that it will be the justices who will decide what types of obstacles the different states can put to discourage women to have abortions.
However, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the Supreme Court also recognized that state governments have an interest in protecting women's health and that they acted within the provisions of the law of ensuring this.
"The state has wide discretion to pass laws ensuring Texas women are not subject to substandard conditions at abortion facilities," Paxton said.
