SCOTUS Overturns LA Law on Abortion Doctors Needing Admitting Privileges (2 Viewers)

[insidejob]

It's all over the news right now but no links yet. Roberts was the 5th vote to overturn it. Boy, you know the "Conservatives" are going to be going after him again for this.

Couldn't be happier they struck down this ridiculous law. It would have left one abortion clinic in the whole state.

 

[LA - L.A.]

Yes. There was a facial challenge. The plaintiffs lost in the 5th Circuit and SCOTUS denied to hear the case, effectively keeping it the law.

Once it went into effect the same (or mostly the same) plaintiffs sued again. The State argued issue preclusion (meaning the previous lawsuit had decided the case) but that was denied, ultimately by SCOTUS, due to the fact that there were changed circumstances, namely - the law had gone into effect.
The lawsuit and appeals were empirical based, where some areas of TExas the law was upheld and in others, it was not due to the undue burden.
That is the point. There is no settled law that the statute is facially invalid. The Texas case was about the fact that the law did, in fact, create an undue burden.


I am not arguing for the Louisiana law, just that I think the stare decisis reasoning is poor jurisprudence.

Isn't the crux of the precedent the question of undue burden? Isn't that the most pressing constitutional question?

 

[JimEverett]

Isn't the crux of the precedent the question of undue burden? Isn't that the most pressing constitutional question?

Yes, I would say "undue burden" is the constitutional test.

 

[LA - L.A.]

Yes, I would say "undue burden" is the constitutional test.

It seems to me that the Louisiana law would have created an undue burden and was intentionally designed to do so. Maybe they took the wrong path to the right decision.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Yes. There was a facial challenge. The plaintiffs lost in the 5th Circuit and SCOTUS denied to hear the case, effectively keeping it the law.

Once it went into effect the same (or mostly the same) plaintiffs sued again. The State argued issue preclusion (meaning the previous lawsuit had decided the case) but that was denied, ultimately by SCOTUS, due to the fact that there were changed circumstances, namely - the law had gone into effect.
The lawsuit and appeals were empirical based, where some areas of TExas the law was upheld and in others, it was not due to the undue burden.
That is the point. There is no settled law that the statute is facially invalid. The Texas case was about the fact that the law did, in fact, create an undue burden.


I am not arguing for the Louisiana law, just that I think the stare decisis reasoning is poor jurisprudence. And seeing how THAT issue is being used by some to attack Kavanaugh and people who voted for Kavanaugh - I thought I would bring up the point.

So your argument is that they should have let the law go into effect, then strike it down?

 

[coldseat]

Yes. There was a facial challenge. The plaintiffs lost in the 5th Circuit and SCOTUS denied to hear the case, effectively keeping it the law.

Once it went into effect the same (or mostly the same) plaintiffs sued again. The State argued issue preclusion (meaning the previous lawsuit had decided the case) but that was denied, ultimately by SCOTUS, due to the fact that there were changed circumstances, namely - the law had gone into effect.
The lawsuit and appeals were empirical based, where some areas of TExas the law was upheld and in others, it was not due to the undue burden.
That is the point. There is no settled law that the statute is facially invalid. The Texas case was about the fact that the law did, in fact, create an undue burden.


I am not arguing for the Louisiana law, just that I think the stare decisis reasoning is poor jurisprudence. And seeing how THAT issue is being used by some to attack Kavanaugh and people who voted for Kavanaugh - I thought I would bring up the point.

That doesn't sound nearly as consequential as you're making it out to be if the effect of the law would have been exactly the same in Louisiana as it was in Texas. Just sounds like a lot more litigation. If that would have been the only practical effect, then this is definitely the right decision.

Also, this whole "protection of women" argument for these laws is a complete farce to start off with. We all know damn well that the only goal of ALL of these laws in seriously consevetives states is to limit and practically eliminate abortions and abortion clinics.

 

[Sandman]

I do not find Roberts' reasoning here as being good at all.
SCOTUS' ruling on th Texas law came after the law had been implemented. The facts surrounding abortion access once the law was implemented amounted to an undue burden, according to the majority. It heard the case after finding that issue preclusion did not apply to the previous lawsuit which was a pre-enforcement challenge. The Lousiana case was a pre-enforcement challenge. Why would stare decisis apply? The cases are very different.

Its more than just that every case is not 100% just like another. Its the difference between a facially invalid statute and one where the empirical evidence can/will lead to invalidation. SCOTUS itself admits as much in the Texas case.

The Court has already reviewed a substantially similar law and found that created an undue burden. That is what Roberts is saying--we have already done this and it is unconstitutional. Breyer stated that it was almost word for word identical. If you rule a statute unconstitutional, and another one is passed that is almost identical, I think it is safe to say the case that ruled the near-identical statute unconstitutional is precedent.

I think if faced with a substantially different statute, you may have seen Roberts uphold it. It is like the meme, which I will not post, where Pam from the office looks at two pictures and says, "It's the same picture." Roberts looked at the almost-identical statute and said, "It is the same."

 

[MT15]

So, the criticism of Kavanaugh that I am hearing involves his testimony during his confirmation hearing that he considered Roe to be established precedent, I think he said it was “important” precedent, but I could be wrong about that. It seems he really didn’t honor the precedent that was before him in this case.

That was a criticism from a lawyer that I heard on the radio. He said Roberts had done the ethical (proper legally) thing here, Kavanaugh not so much. He felt he had been a bit disingenuous in his responses during confirmation.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

That doesn't sound nearly as consequential as you're making it out to be if the effect of the law would have been exactly the same in Louisiana as it was in Texas. Just sounds like a lot more litigation. If that would have been the only practical effect, then this is definitely the right decision.

Also, this whole "protection of women" argument for these laws is a complete farce to start off with. We all know damn well that the only goal of ALL of these laws in seriously consevetives states is to limit and practically eliminate abortions and abortion clinics.

Exactly, and they even pointed out how some facilities were denying applications for privileges for that exact reason.

 

[MT15]

There are places where the doctors providing women’s health services at clinics that also provide abortions do not feel safe living in the communities they serve. They fly in for a week and fly out to where they actually live. Without local residency, hospitals refuse to grant admitting privileges. And like GA says, some hospitals won’t grant admitting privileges because of their opposition to abortion.

There is zero medical need for the provider in an abortion clinic to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. It’s similar to other attempts to outlaw abortion outside of the established rights of women by restricting it out of existence. They are actively trying to take away women’s rights using an end around an established ruling of the Supreme Court.

 

[wardorican]

I generally like reading these.

Opinion analysis: With Roberts providing the fifth vote, court strikes down Louisiana abortion law (Updated) - SCOTUSblog

Four years ago, by a vote of 5-3, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that (among other things) required doctors who perform abortions to have the right to admit patients at a nearby hospital. In that case, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined his four more liberal colleagues in holding that, althou

www.scotusblog.com

With only three other justices joining his opinion, Breyer needed one more vote to reverse the 5th Circuit’s decision upholding the admitting-privileges requirement. That vote came from Roberts, who agreed with the result that Breyer reached – striking down the requirement – but not with Breyer’s reasoning. Roberts emphasized that he had disagreed with the majority’s decision to strike down the Texas admitting-privileges requirement in 2016 and still believed today that the Texas “case was wrongly decided.” Despite that conviction, Roberts nonetheless agreed with Breyer that the Louisiana law “cannot stand” because of a legal doctrine known as stare decisis – the idea that courts should generally not overrule their prior precedents. That doctrine, Roberts explained, “requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike.” Because the Louisiana admitting-privileges requirement “imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons,” Roberts concluded, it too must fall.

Roberts devoted a sizeable portion of his 16-page opinion to a discussion of the Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which the court held that a state cannot “impose an undue burden on the woman’s ability to obtain an abortion.” Roberts pushed back against the suggestion (made in Whole Woman’s Health and again by Breyer today) that the undue burden standard requires courts to weigh the alleged benefits of a law “against the burdens it imposes on abortion access.” Although this discussion was largely theoretical, because Roberts agreed with Breyer and the other liberal justices that the Louisiana law cannot stand, it’s an important point that could come into play in future challenges to laws regulating abortion.

Read in isolation from Casey, Roberts argued, an inquiry into the asserted benefits of a law could invite a “grand balancing test” that could lead to arbitrary results. In the context of abortion, it could require courts to weigh the state’s interest in protecting potential human life and the health of the pregnant woman against the woman’s right to choose – a nearly impossible task, according to Roberts. “Pretending that we could pull that off would require us to act as legislators, not judges.” “Nothing about Casey suggested that a weighing of costs and benefits of an abortion regulation was a job for the courts,” Roberts observed. Rather, Roberts continued, legislatures generally have “wide discretion” to legislate “in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty.” To the extent that Casey addressed the benefits of a law, it did so in the context of “the threshold requirement that the State have a ‘legitimate purpose’ and that the law be ‘reasonably related to that goal.’” If the state can make that showing, Roberts concluded, then the only question is whether the law places a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion; the benefits are not balanced against the law’s burdens.

“In this case,” Roberts continued, “Casey’s requirement of finding a substantial obstacle before invalidating an abortion regulation is therefore” enough to strike down the Louisiana admitting-privileges requirement, just as it was in the Texas case four years ago, without any need to consider the benefits of those laws.

 

[wardorican]

Another opinion on SCOTUS Blog..

Symposium: Chief Justice Roberts reins in the cavalry of abortion providers charging toward the elimination of abortion regulation - SCOTUSblog

Cynthia Yee-Wallace is deputy attorney general of the state of Idaho. She filed an amicus brief on behalf of the state in support of the respondent in June Medical Services v. Russo, along with Brian Kane, who is the assistant chief deputy attorney general for the state of Idaho. Abortion provide

www.scotusblog.com

In his concurring opinion in June Medical, Roberts laid to rest much of the abortion providers’ unified interpretation of Whole Woman’s Health. Roberts affirmed the importance and validity of the court’s prior abortion precedent, noting that “[r]espect for precedent ‘promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.’” Roberts reiterated the central holding in Casey, which affirmed not only a woman’s right to choose a previability abortion, but also states’ “important and legitimate interests in … protecting the health of pregnant women and in protecting the potentiality of human life.”

Roberts made it clear that when defending their abortion regulations, states do not have to prove that their regulations are necessary to further a legitimate state interest. Instead, as set forth in Casey, states must prove that there is a legitimate purpose for the regulation at issue and that the regulation is reasonably related to advancing that purpose. Once this showing is made, the sole question for a trial court is to determine if the law creates a substantial obstacle on a woman’s right to choose a previability abortion. Through this analysis, Roberts made it clear that Whole Woman’s Health did not create a balancing test under which trial courts must review abortion regulations.

Roberts went on to note that it is not the job of the courts to weigh the costs and benefits of an abortion regulation. Rather, analyzing the policy costs and benefits of such measures is a task left to legislators. To the extent that courts look at the benefits of an abortion law, they are to do so only as a component of the threshold requirement that states have a legitimate purpose for the law and that the law is reasonably related to that purpose.

The chief justice simplified the role of the judiciary in analyzing abortion regulations to a pair of straightforward questions: (1) Does the state have a legitimate purpose in adopting the regulation? and if so, (2) Does the regulation create a substantial obstacle to a woman’s right to a previability abortion? With this formulation, Roberts brought the balance of Casey back into the equation by making clear that courts analyzing abortion regulations as an undue burden are required to focus on whether the law creates a substantial obstacle to the abortion decision, not on whether the benefits of the law outweigh its costs. State abortion regulations will continue to be valid and enforceable if a challenger is unable to show that the law at issue is a substantial obstacle to women’s right to choose a previability abortion. Importantly, Roberts (and presumably the four dissenters) interprets a substantial obstacle as requiring more than a simple showing that the law makes it harder to obtain an abortion. It should not be overlooked that Roberts dissented in Whole Woman’s Health, and concurred in June Medical solely on the basis of stare decisis. In other words, states may enact admitting privileges regulations that can meet the Casey requirements, but a law identical to Texas’ or Louisiana’s will fall.

Abortion providers’ one-sided interpretation in Whole Woman’s Health sought to invalidate the states’ ability to regulate previability abortions for a legitimate purpose. The chief justice clarified that Casey continues to be the lodestar for legal and judicial interpretation of state previability abortion regulations. June Medical looks to be a critical victory for states because it reaffirmed the straightforward two-question inquiry that Casey created, and demonstrates that states may continue to regulate abortion within the well-defined boundaries of Supreme Court precedent.

My laymans view is that Roberts said, the court said the Texas law couldn't stand, so we're not going to let any copies/similar laws stand, stop trying. However, the precedent was too complicated, so, go back to looking at how Casey handled it.

Personally, I think he's trying to avoid the headache of future cases all trying to copy the Texas law.

 

[JimEverett]

That doesn't sound nearly as consequential as you're making it out to be if the effect of the law would have been exactly the same in Louisiana as it was in Texas. Just sounds like a lot more litigation. If that would have been the only practical effect, then this is definitely the right decision.

1. There was at least 1 ore reason to invalidate the Louisiana law apart from believing stare decisis from the Texas case. So, you could take Alito's reasoning on stare decisis and still have found the law unconstitutional.
2. As I wrote earlier, I only brought up the point due to the criticism of Kavanugh (and Collins) on the issue of "settled law." There is a very reasonable - and I think better legal argument - that the Texas case and the Louisiana case were circumstantially different (which is exactly what SCOTUS wrote when denying Texas' move to dismiss the case on the idea that the case was already settled when plaintiffs lost on their facial challenge claim.)

 

[superchuck500]

Good read on Roberts from today's WaPo op/ed.

Conservatives in a tizzy over Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. should calm down. Roberts is no closet liberal — or even closet moderate; he’s a savvy operator at the helm of a decidedly conservative court.

Granted, Roberts’s recent alignments with the four liberal justices are unnerving for conservatives, to say the least. He wrote the opinion invalidating President Trump’s move to revoke the Obama-era order protecting “dreamers,” who were brought to the United States as children, from deportation. Along with Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, he said gay and transgender employees are covered by federal anti-discrimination law. And, perhaps most alarming for conservatives, he provided the fifth vote to overturn a Louisiana abortion law.
Has Roberts gone dangerously rogue, another conservative disappointment along the lines of the court’s previous swing justice, Anthony M. Kennedy?

If only — although Kennedy, with notable exceptions, was a reliably conservative justice for three decades.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...es-john-roberts-hasnt-gone-dangerously-rogue/