The U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down Texas restrictions on abortion providers could have an impact on existing laws in Indiana, but that effect won’t be immediate, a reproductive rights expert and advocate said Monday.
In a 5-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has struck down Texas’s restrictions, saying the laws impose an undue burden on a woman’s right to obtain an abortion. The Texas law, passed in 2013, requires that abortion providers have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and that abortion facilities comply with the requirements for ambulatory surgical centers. The plaintiffs in the case are clinics, including Whole Woman’s Health, and doctors providing abortion services.
It’s one of the many so-called TRAP laws — targeted regulation of abortion providers — that states, including Indiana, have passed in the wake of both the 1973 Roe v. Wade and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Currently, Indiana law requires physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges, in writing, at a hospital located in the county where abortions are provided or in an adjacent county, or to have entered into a written agreement with a physician who has those privileges. A new law, which currently is being challenged in federal court, would require any written agreement to be renewed annually and would require the Indiana State Department of Health to submit copies of admitting privileges and written agreements between physicians to other hospitals in the county and contiguous counties where abortions are performed.
While the Supreme Court decision doesn’t invalidate Indiana’s law — it only directly affects the law in Texas despite being a national ruling — it will have an effect on the way a court would rule on any future challenge to that law and other laws that specifically regulate abortion clinics and providers, said Dawn Johnsen, the Walter W. Foskett Professor of law at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law.
Johnsen said the high court’s decision means that lower courts, when applying the new precedent set in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 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.