A Texas abortion law being argued before the Supreme Court has the New York Times’ editorial board worried about both women’s access to abortions in the Lone Star State, as well as the fate of the 2016 presidential election.
“States like Texas pass laws strictly regulating abortion clinics for one reason: to make it hard, if not impossible, for women to obtain a safe and legal abortion,” the paper’s editorial board said this week.
For the 165-year-old newspaper, the current abortion debate in the Supreme Court also serves as a reminder that many of the current GOP primary candidates are staunchly pro-life, and that many of them would work to decrease the number of abortions performed per year.
“The next president will also have the opportunity to shape the federal judiciary at lower levels. While the Supreme Court’s decision on Texas’ abortion restrictions this term may clarify what kinds of regulations states may impose, lower federal courts will still have a big role in determining how regulations are carried out.” the board wrote in a separate editorial this week.
“The next president will also play a crucial role enforcing federal laws that affect reproductive rights,” it added. “When several states last year barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements, the Obama administration notified them that they were in violation of federal law, which says Medicaid patients can receive care from any qualified provider. An anti-abortion president might choose to enforce this law less aggressively.”
The stakes couldn’t be higher, considering the Republican Party has fielded several pro-life candidates, the newspaper continued.
“The Republican candidates … are all anti-choice. Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Carson oppose abortion even in cases of rape or incest. Mr. Trump and Gov. John Kasich would allow abortion in those extreme circumstances,” the board wrote.
“Even if abortion remains constitutionally protected, a Republican president could do much to limit, if not obliterate, that right for millions of Americans, particularly low-income women, who are most vulnerable to efforts by government to restrict their reproductive freedoms,” it said.
Opponents of the Texas law, including the Times, argue that it is really a covert effort by pro-lifers to use onerous government regulations to shutter clinics throughout the state.
“Versions of this law are on the books in 23 other states, part of a carefully designed, decades-long effort to undermine women’s constitutional right to abortions,” the Times said in reference to the Texas law.
The law in question, Texas House Bill 3994, “forces the closing of clinics for reasons that have nothing to do with protecting women’s health.” the paper asserted.
“[A]nti-abortion activists, who drafted the Texas law and many others like it around the country, know that claims of ‘protecting women’s health’ have succeeded in giving cover to laws whose true purpose is to end access to legal abortion in America,” the paper concluded.
But proponents of the Texas abortion law argue the bill seeks only to impose on “women’s health clinics” the same basic sanitary standards followed by doctors and dentists.
