Supreme Court to Hear Abortion Case
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We ran the numbers: There are 396 news articles covering this topic. 14% (56) are left leaning, 61% (241) center, 25% (99) right leaning.
On Friday, the Supreme Court said that it will hear a case challenging a restrictive abortion law in Louisiana. This case will present the first opportunity for the court to consider an abortion case with the conservative majority created by President Trump’s two court appointees and has implications for how abortion will be legislated in the future. The Louisiana law requires hospital admitting privileges for doctors who perform abortions; abortion rights advocates say that the rule restricts women’s access to vital health services, while pro-life advocates say that the law protects women’s health. The law is nearly identical to a Texas regulation that the Supreme Court overturned just three years ago. If the law stands, it would force two of Louisiana’s three abortion clinics to close. Anti-abortion groups believe that if the law is upheld it will represent into overturning Roe vs. Wade, which protects women’s right to abortions.
The right-leaning National Review published an article questioning “Will the Justices be Bold on Abortion?” The article espouses the belief that unborn children should not be deprived of personhood and criticizes the court for overturning the parallel “modest” state restriction on abortion in Texas. The article also notes that “an opinion that actually reverses Whole Women’s Health would demonstrate that the Court is willing to act with at least some degree of boldness and would greatly encourage state legislators who’ve passed hundreds of new pro-life laws in the past decade.”
Left-leaning coverage from the Washington Post considered the inclinations of the recent additions to the Supreme Court, noting that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were enthusiastically supported by anti-abortion groups when Trump appointed them to the court. The article notes that both factions of the abortion debate consider the court’s decision to be a momentous one.
A centrist analysis from NPR highlights the changes in the court since the Obama administration, noting that in addition to the Louisiana case, there are a dozen abortion caes that are only one step away from the court that will eventually lead the Supreme Court to rule on abortion accessibility. However, the article also notes that it would be unusual for the court to revisit a similar issue so soon after the 2016 Texas case and rule differently.