Women’s health supported by the U.S. Supreme Court

This time two years ago, there were a decision (Hobby Lobby) and an injunction (Wheaton College) by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the majority of the justices, who all happened to be men, came down on the side of restricting access to health care for any women who worked for religious organizations, or even for religious people who happened to run corporations. While those women may have found access to contraception, abortion and various healthcare needs through other means, it was made more complicated. This made it more likely that many women would not take the steps necessary to obtain the care they needed.

Fast forward to June 27, 2016, when eight U.S. Supreme Court justices voted 5-3 to support reproductive rights for women by striking down a Texas law that the majority believed imposed undue restrictions on medical providers. The regulations resulted in closing down more than half the abortion clinics in Texas, taking the number from 44 to 19, according to The Washington Post. The five justices, for whom Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the opinion, found the requirements the law imposed were not medically necessary, and that they were harmful to women, rather than beneficial. In a concurring opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that as long as the “Court adheres to Roe v. Wade ... laws like H.B. 2 (the Texas law) that ‘do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion,’ cannot survive judicial inspection.”

The decision, strongly worded by the majority, made it clear that steps taken at the state level by politicians to undermine standing law will not be accepted any longer by this Court. Linda Hirshman, author of “Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World,” wrote in The Washington Post on June 30, “Abortion rights matter. Marriage equality matters. But neither matters as much as the fundamental integrity of lawmaking. Making law on the basis of falsehoods, or assertions that cannot be proven or reached by reason, threatens society at a basic level.”

The Texas law that shut down 44 clinics created a situation where 750,000 women of child-bearing age were more than 200 miles from a legal abortion clinic. Such obstacles to medical access were not overlooked or minimized, as too often happens, by this group of justices on the Court, and for that they should be thanked. They made the judiciary the last stop for a reality check on how the law stands, and how it must be followed, despite what the legislative branch might like to do to change that to forward its own agenda and that of its constituents who would like to see Roe v. Wade ignored. Planned Parenthood has announced it will take on restrictive abortion laws in eight other states now that the Supreme Court ruled against the Texas law, so there could be more steps forward to support women’s right to clinical care under current U.S. law.

For those who believe such Supreme Court decisions are important to the U.S. social fabric, and that they could be taking the country backward rather than forward, it will be critical to remember the Court’s makeup when the presidential election rolls around in November. Cast a vote for the candidate who would seem most likely to choose a justice who believes in a woman’s right to affordable and accessible health care. It will help not only women, but also their families and loved ones, who all are affected by their decisions and their ability to access medical care when they need it.