In his dissent in the recent Louisiana abortion decision, June Medical Services v. Russo, Associate Justice Samuel Alito persuasively explained how the five-justice majority erred in finding unconstitutional a state law requiring that abortionists have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
The entire dissent is essential reading for anyone interested in how the abortion industry is allowed to operate. The central question, however, is whether abortionists should have the right, known in legal jargon as “standing,” to challenge abortion laws that aim to protect women from the abortionists’ own shoddy practices, all the while claiming to represent those very women. This would be like representatives of the auto industry marching into court to strike down laws that burden them to make cars safer, on behalf of the people who buy their cars.
Alito believes they should not.
“Our precedents rarely permit a plaintiff to assert the rights of a third party, and June Medical cannot satisfy our established test for third-party standing,” he wrote of the clinic. “Indeed, what June Medical seeks is something we have never allowed. It wants to rely on the rights of third parties whose interests conflict with its own.”
Alito pointed out that for the Louisiana abortionists to have standing to challenge the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, they must meet two criteria: they must maintain a close relationship with their patients, and the women must be unable to challenge the law for themselves.
The case abortionists rely on to assert standing, Singleton v. Wulff, was also an abortion case, decided in 1976 by virtually the same court that had legalized abortion just three years earlier. Although the Singleton decision was less clear cut, it held that “Standing arises if the person bringing a case to assert the rights of a third party has a close relationship with that third party, and the third party has obstacles preventing it from suing on its own behalf.”
In June Medical, not a single woman from Louisiana challenged the law, but there was no evidence that they could not have challenged it if they wanted to. Alito asserted in his dissent that women can speak for themselves and can even do so anonymously if they choose. Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton made that abundantly clear.
The other point magnified by Alito — that abortionists do not have close relationships with their patients — is something Priests for Life, Rachel’s Vineyard and the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, which is a joint project of Priests for Life and Anglicans for Life) have been saying publicly for years. Abortionists are not the sort of doctors women see or consult routinely. An abortionist is simply the person to whom a pregnant woman turns when fear and despair convince her she has no choice but to end the life of her child.
“A woman who obtains an abortion typically does not develop a close relationship with the doctor who performs the procedure,” Alito wrote. “On the contrary, their relationship is generally brief and very limited.”
The vast majority of abortions in this country take place in the free-standing abortion clinics that began popping up the day after Roe v. Wade. While it’s a stretch to call some of these abortionists “doctors,” and even more of a stretch to call abortion “medicine,” it is no exaggeration to say that none of them have relationships with their patients. Some may perform two or more abortions on the same woman, but that’s a dangerous liaison and nothing more.
In March, when oral arguments were being heard in June Medical, we organized rallies outside the Supreme Court to give women a chance to tell their own stories, some of which can be read at AbortionTestimonies.com. One point that kept surfacing throughout those two days was that this notion of women having close relationships with their abortionist is a lie.
“I gave three abortionists money to take care of my problem,” one woman testified. “I never had a doctor-patient relationship with any of them. It was strictly a financial transaction.”
The majority in June Medical ignores the voices of these women and once again sacrifices their health and safety on the altar of ‘’access.” Alito recognized this and remarked on the special treatment abortion has always received in law and in the courts.
“The idea that a regulated party can invoke the right of a third party for the purpose of attacking legislation enacted to protect the third party is stunning,” he wrote. “Given the apparent conflict of interest, that concept would be rejected out of hand in a case not involving abortion.”
He also knows that this decision of the Supreme Court makes it easier for abortionists to continue to challenge other laws aimed at protecting women and for other courts to strike them down.
“Today’s decision,” he wrote, “claims new victims.”
Father Frank Pavone is national director of Priests for Life.
