Indiana now is seeing the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that in late June struck down Texas abortion regulations.
Ken Falk, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said a lawsuit the organization filed on Thursday challenging a new Indiana abortion regulation was "very much so" influenced by the opinion the court issued in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.
And Dawn Johnsen, Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law and a reproductive rights expert and advocate, said it's likely just the beginning.
"I think this is exactly the kind of challenge we can expect to see in states across the country following Whole Woman's Health," Johnsen said Thursday afternoon.
The high court’s decision means that lower courts, when applying the new precedent set in Whole Woman’s Health, can’t just defer to a state that says it enacted a law for the purposes of promoting women’s health. Now, courts must give a meaningful, close review to see whether that claim is true — whether a law actually benefits women who might seek an abortion, or whether it simply serves as an obstacle.
That’s a change in the “undue burden” standard in 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling, in which the high court said laws impose such a burden if they are enacted with the purpose of placing “a substantial obstacle in the path” of a woman seeking an abortion.