Abortion opponents urge Supreme Court to uphold Texas law
WASHINGTON — Opponents of abortion took their turn this week telling the Supreme Court how to rule on the biggest abortion case the justices have considered in a generation.
Just as professional women, including more than 100 lawyers, flooded the court last month with personal stories of their abortions and subsequent achievements in life, women who regret their abortions and relatives of some who died following procedures urged the justices to see things their way.
Abortion case at Supreme Court gets personal
"When the doctor told me I could never have children, I was devastated," writes Jackie Bullard, one of many women cited in briefs arriving this week in a challenge to Texas' tough new abortion restrictions. "That day I knew I had taken the life of the only child I would ever carry."
One brief purports to speak for 3,348 women who have had abortions and experienced psychological or physical injuries as a result. Many are identified only by their first name or initials.
"The abortion has impacted my life negatively the day it happened and every day since for almost 30 years with unmanageable and powerful emotions of guilt, sorrow and raw pain," one of the women, Kathryn Bretz, writes. "I developed a migraine disorder that has consumed my life, destroyed my career and finances."
The graphic tales of post-abortion complications and even deaths — such as Laura Smith's death in Hyannis, Mass., in 2007 following a procedure at a clinic that lacked an oxygen source — are intended to influence the justices in the same way as those reported last month by women who had abortions because of medical complications, rapes or unintended pregnancies.
That so many women are willing to share with the court their personal stories shows the stakes involved in the battle over abortion restrictions in Texas and other states where conservative legislatures have imposed tougher regulations.
The Supreme Court will hear the challenge brought by Whole Woman's Health, which operates several clinics in Texas, on March 2. A decision is expected in late June.
In Texas, going the distance for an abortion
If the justices reach the main issues in the battle — restrictions requiring clinics to meet standards that apply to surgical centers and doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals — their ruling could be the most significant since a 1992 Pennsylvania case permitted state restrictions that do not impose an "undue burden" on women seeking abortions.
Challengers to the Texas law say the new requirements are medically unnecessary and would leave only 10 abortion clinics in the nation's second-largest state, down from more than 40 before the law took effect. That would force some women to drive hundreds of miles, attempt to induce abortions without medical care, or carry their pregnancies to term.
Those assertions are challenged in a brief filed by anti-abortion faculty members from 80 colleges and universities. It contends that warnings about shuttered clinics and weeks-long waits for abortions at those remaining open are exaggerated or unproven.
With the court expected to be closely divided on the issue, personal tales on both sides could prove important — particularly with Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's perennial swing vote. Kennedy wrote the court's 5-4 opinion upholding a ban on late-term abortions in 2007, famously asserting that "some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained."
Supreme Court will wade back into abortion debate
While 113 current and former lawyers, professors and law students who have had abortions without regrets signed on to a brief last month, the new briefs from the other side paint a darker picture.
Several cite the 2013 case of Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of murder and involuntary manslaughter following the deaths of three newborn infants and a 41-year-old woman at a Pennsylvania clinic labeled a "house of horrors." They use that extreme case to argue that clinics should meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centers.
A brief submitted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops cites a study by the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research estimating that at least 45,000 U.S. women experience physical complications from abortions annually.
"Under these circumstances, there is ample justification for requiring doctors performing abortions to have hospital admitting privileges," the brief says.
The briefs from abortion opponents are intended to bolster Texas' case, particularly in light of the 45 briefs submitted on the other side. Texas has argued that its legislature acted properly, given what it called "medical disagreement" over the issues of women's health and abortion access.