The Supreme Court hasn’t waded into battles simmering around the country over a slew of new state abortion regulations, but activists have two shots this month to get cases heard.
The court could announce Monday, or sometime after that, whether it will scrutinize a law that would effectively gut Mississippi’s last remaining abortion clinic. The justices also are expected to announce this month whether they will consider a North Carolina measure requiring abortion doctors to display and describe to a woman a sonogram of her fetus.
Lower courts have split on these types of measures, and activists on both sides of the debate want them heard by the country’s highest court. The Mississippi law in particular has some big ramifications. Still, legal experts are pessimistic the justices will dive in right now.
Four other states have passed laws similar to North Carolina’s, which require doctors to perform ultrasounds on a woman requesting an abortion and both display and describe the fetus’ image to her.
“Being able to choose freely to see the ultrasound display, be given an explanation of what is displayed, and hear the doppler of her unborn baby’s heartbeat represents for the mother accurate information about her unborn child so she is fully informed as she decides whether or not to have an abortion,” said Barbara Holt, president of North Carolina Right to Life.
Courts have blocked such laws in two states: Oklahoma and North Carolina. But the Supreme Court declined two years ago to hear Oklahoma’s law, making it questionable whether it would take up North Carolina’s this time around.
The Mississippi law takes a different tactic toward reducing abortions, by requiring abortion doctors to obtain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The state’s only remaining abortion clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Center, says it has asked all the nearby hospitals for admitting privileges for its two doctors but was rejected by all of them.
The law has been suspended for the time being, under a ruling upheld last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. If it’s allowed to take effect, Mississippi would become the first state in the country without an abortion provider.
But legal experts say the Supreme Court may well punt the case back to lower courts, which have not yet fully ruled on its merits. That would potentially buy some more time for the Jackson clinic, which says it sees about 2,200 women a year for abortions.
The center has become a flashpoint in a broader battle across the country over tighter regulations on abortion providers and the places they work. Clinics have been steadily closing as states have passed tougher laws requiring them to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers or for doctors to gain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
That’s been a huge victory for abortion opponents, who are centering their arguments around making abortion clinics safer for women. But abortion rights advocates call them a thinly veiled attempt to shutter clinics.
“There’s only one clinic in Mississippi, and shutting it down would mean women have to leave the state to get an abortion,” said Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center. “That’s clearly unconstitutional.”
