The Supreme Court Just Got Deluged With Arguments Against Texas’ Stupid Anti-Abortion Law

Africa Studio/Shutterstock

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


On Tuesday, a wide-ranging group of organizations and individuals asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Texas anti-abortion law that threatens to close the majority of clinics in the state. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for the case in March and make a decision this summer.

The groups, which included medical professionals, legal experts, economists, religious organizations, the Obama administration, and more than 160 members of Congress, filed 45 briefs explaining their opposition to HB 2, the sweeping 2013 anti-abortion law that has been caught up in legal battles ever since it was passed. More than half of the state’s 41 clinics have closed as a result of the law. If the Supreme Court does not overturn HB 2, the number of clinics in the state could drop to just 10.

“For many women in Texas, [HB 2] would create a legal regime in which a real choice about whether to carry a pregnancy to full term ‘exists in theory but not in fact,” argued attorneys at the Department of Justice in a brief, adding that the restrictions imposed by the law “do not serve—in fact, they disserve—the government’s interest in protecting women’s health.”

Both abortion rights opponents and advocates say the case will affect existing restrictions on abortion across the country and will also determine to what extent states can restrict abortion. The case, Whole Women’s Health v. Cole focuses on two aspects of HB 2: one that requires abortion facilities to meet hospital-like architectural standards, and another requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges with a nearby hospital.

“There is incontrovertible evidence that imposing these unjustified burdens on abortion providers is impeding women’s access to quality, evidence-based medicine,” wrote a number of the leading physician’s organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in their brief. “HB 2 has delayed, and in some cases blocked, women’s access to legal abortion. Both outcomes jeopardize women’s health.”

The 45 briefs filed on Tuesday were an unprecedented demonstration of opposition to anti-abortion laws, according to Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

“Never before has such a diverse array of organizations and leaders from the fields of medicine, government, law, business, and religion stepped forward to condemn abortion restrictions at the US Supreme Court,” Northup told reporters. “These briefs present a thorough record of the undeniable damage Texas’ sham law has and will continue to cause, and an indisputable legal argument for why it must be struck down. This deceptive law is an affront to science-based medicine, an insult to women’s dignity, and reflects a total disregard for the rule of law and the rights of millions.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate