Chief Justice John Roberts Joins Liberals in Striking Down Abortion Safety Law
by Dr. Susan Berry
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal wing of the Court Monday in a 5-4 ruling that struck down a Louisiana abortion safety law.
In the majority opinion for June Medical Services v. Russo, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote Louisiana’s law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals to facilitate continuity of care in the event of emergencies has “nothing to do with the State’s asserted interests in promoting women’s health and safety.”
Roberts wrote in his concurrence:
The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike. The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote regarding the issue of whether abortion providers “[can] be presumed to have third-party standing to challenge health and safety regulations on behalf of their patients”:
Today a majority of the Court perpetuates its ill-founded abortion jurisprudence by enjoining a perfectly legitimate state law and doing so without jurisdiction. As is often the case with legal challenges to abortion regulations, this suit was brought by abortionists and abortion clinics. Their sole claim before this Court is that Louisiana’s law violates the purported substantive due process right of a woman to abort her unborn child. But they concede that this right does not belong to them, and they seek to vindicate no private rights of their own. Under a proper understanding of Article III, these plaintiffs lack standing to invoke our jurisdiction.
full story at https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/29/chief-justice-john-roberts-joins-liberals-in-striking-down-abortion-safety-law/