The Supreme Court Struck Down An Anti-Abortion Law In Louisiana, USA

The Supreme Court upheld the constitutional right to abortion Monday, rejecting a state’s attempts to limit access to the procedure for the second time in four years. The decision strikes down a 2014 Louisiana law that required physicians performing abortions at clinics to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the deciding opinion, noted that the law at issue was identical to the one the court considered and struck down in Texas in 2016. The 2016 decision reaffirmed the “undue burden standard” — the idea that it is unconstitutional to pass laws creating major barriers to abortion access — a benchmark used by the Supreme Court in every case examining abortion regulations since it was established in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Monday’s Supreme Court ruling re-emphasizes the power of this standard. Monday’s decision will not be the last of this year’s rulings on reproductive rights. The court also heard two combined cases via video chat in May about the Trump administration's rules granting employers and universities the ability to refuse to provide birth control coverage for their employees for religious or moral reasons.