•  
  •  
 

Supreme Court Review

Article Title

Substantial Uncertainty: Whole Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt and the Future of Abortion Law

Abstract

Commentators have heralded the Supreme Court’s most recent abortion decision as the most significant in decades. By a vote of five to three in Whole Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt, the Court struck down two key provisions of a Texas statute known as HB2. One of the disputed provisions required physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within thirty miles. Another mandated that all abortion clinics comply with state regulations governing ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs). HB2 promised to revolutionize abortion access in Texas, because compliance with the law was expensive or even impossible for most providers in the state. After it was allowed to go into effect, the admitting-privileges provision had forced nearly twenty clinics to close. Had Texas enforced the ASC provision, at least another ten seemed likely to shutter. By striking down the law, the Court’s decision will likely expand abortion access in Texas and set the stage for the invalidation of laws like HB2 in other states. Perhaps more importantly, Whole Woman’s Health also put teeth in the undue-burden test first announced in Planned Parenthood v Casey. The Court held that Casey required consideration of both the benefits and the burdens created by a law regulating abortion and demanded meaningful proof that a law claiming to protect women’s health actually did so.

Full text not available in ChicagoUnbound.

Share

COinS