Five Supreme Court justices — Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — canceled health and safety regulations for Texas abortion clinics in June with their decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. These were long-standing, generally applicable regulations for all ambulatory surgical treatment centers in that state. But when state health officials dared to apply them to abortion clinics, the justices threw them out. So now abortion clinics are virtually the only ambulatory surgical centers throughout Texas exempt from these health and safety standards.

Then last week, the Oklahoma Supreme Court threw out health and safety standards, and similar laws in Mississippi and Wisconsin are also on hold. These cases represent an ongoing legal tragedy made possible in part by justices who claimed that there is not sufficient evidence to support the laws. They were wrong.