Whole Woman's Health V. Hellerstedt: Legal Case Study

- In New York Times of February 27, 2016, similar to ones around country, the 2013Texas’ law was written by anti-abortion activists with only one purpose of shutting down clinics since its two main requirements have nothing to do with protecting women’s health. First, admitting privileges are often hard for doctors to get for bureaucratic reasons. Second, ambulatory surgical center standards are prohibitively expensive to meet and medically unnecessary due to the fact that abortion is one of the safest of all medical procedures, with a complication rate less than one-tenth of 1%. (The Editorial Board,

The Texas anti-abortion law has taken the country’s attention by storm. It is an issue on many different woman’s minds, especially those who live in the state of Texas. The new laws are forcing many woman to have to cross state lines in order to receive an abortion and medical care. This includes woman who needs abortions due to preexisting medical conditions and those who are carrying fetuses which are diseased and are expected not to be born as healthy babies. The Texas Governor Rick Perry and Senator Ted Cruz are leading the fight for the abortion laws to become permanent, laws that are considered the strictest abortion laws that this country has ever seen.

     Is the Texas law banning abortion unconstitutional? This is just one of the many issues proposed throughout the case. According to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun-no, it is not. The decision was made that there is a right to abortion and women

"The Court today is correct in holding that the right asserted by Jane Roe is embraced within the personal liberty protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is evident that the Texas abortion statute infringes that right directly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more complete abridgment of a constitutional freedom than that worked by the inflexible criminal statute now in force in Texas. The question then becomes whether the state interests advanced to justify this abridgment can survive the 'particularly careful scrutiny' that the Fourteenth Amendment here requires. The asserted state interests are protection of the health and safety of the pregnant woman, and protection of the potential

The topic of reproductive rights surrounding women in Texas has been a hot buttoned issue since the closing of many reproductive centers across the state. Recently damaging abortion restrictions were passed and therefor encroach on women’s reproductive rights even more by decreasing access to abortion care. Texas’ 84th Legislature, both passed HB 3994 as a law and had it Governor Abbott make it effective with his signature on July 8, or this year. This law complicates access to abortion services for mistreated and neglected minors and for those who do not possess specific identification cards in Texas.

Regardless of the opinions surrounding abortion, a majority of people are familiar with the Supreme court cases of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. These two cases have played a tremendous role in regard to the abortion debate. In 1973, the Roe v. Wade case was ruled in favour of Roe and stated the stringent criminalization of abortion in Texas was deemed unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment. The law violated the right of privacy, which implied the privacy of a woman’s decision to an abortion. Although the courts agreed with Roe, they also recognized the rights to an abortion are not absolute. Limitations to the right was based on the trimesters of pregnancy with the first trimester protecting the woman’s choice and the third trimester being acceptable for states to regulate or even ban abortions outside of therapeutic reasons.

While the fight to legalize abortion, for reasons other than a mothers health concerns, was won, states such as Texas are now reconsidering the regulations, which go along with such right. In 2004 the State of Texas introduced the Woman’s Right to Know Act, which “requires that all abortions at or after 16 weeks’ gestation be performed in an ambulatory surgical center (ASC)” (Colman, S., & Joyce, T. (2010), p. 775). Roe V Wade’s Supreme Court decision makes it federal law that abortion be legal, therefore the state of Texas cannot make a law specifically prohibiting abortions around this time. However, they can implement acts such as the one discussed above to hinder a women’s access to such rights. By implementing the Woman’s Right to Know Act, the state of Texas is allowing abortion, however it makes access to it within the state of Texas out of reach for the majority of women. In the time following the effect of this law “not one of Texas’s 54 nonhospital abortion providers met the requirements of a surgical center” (Colman, S., & Joyce, T. (2010), p. 775. Following that, a

The conflict with anti-abortion laws were presented to the United States Supreme Court in 1973. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court reviewed a Texas law in which criminalized abortion. The Texas statute stated that any abortion procedure is illegal, unless it is “an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother” (Roe v. Wade, 1973). The plaintiff in this case, Jane Roe argued that the law was unconstitutional. She wanted to terminate her pregnancy by means of abortion performed by a competent, licensed physician, and under safe and clinical conditions. Roe was unauthorized to have a legal abortion because her life was not endangered in having the child. However, she could not afford to travel to a jurisdiction that allowed a safe and legal abortion. Roe argued that the Texas statute violated her right to personal privacy which is protected by the First,

The issue of abortion is one of the most controversial topics of our time, but recently the amount of public interest has grown exponentially. A number of bills regarding this policy issue such as Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 and Child Interstate Notification Act have both greatly influenced the public’s opinion of abortion. Although, the issue of abortion hasn’t always been like this; according to Timeline of Abortion Laws and Events, an article from the Chicago Tribune, “The earliest anti-abortion laws were intended to protect women from untrained abortionists.” (Timeline) Since the 1973 passing of the Supreme Court Case, Roe V Wade, women have been able to obtain the abortion procedure in all 50 states, 46 of which were

The two sides of this case were the plaintiffs, who were five abortion clinics and doctors who provided abortion services, and the defendant, which was the state of Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs filed suit to have the state declare the five provisions unconstitutional. During the appeal in the Third Circuit Court, the court upheld all but the husband notification requirement.

In 1973, the Supreme Court made a decision in one of the most controversial cases in history, the case of Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 (1973)), in which abortion was legalized and state anti-abortion statues were struck down for being unconstitutional. This essay will provide a brief history and analysis of the issues of this case for both the woman’s rights and the states interest in the matter. Also, this essay will address the basis for the court ruling in Roe’s favor and the effects this decision has had on subsequent cases involving a woman’s right to choose abortion in the United States. The court’s decision created legal precedent for several subsequent abortion restriction cases and has led to the development of legislation to protect women’s health rights. Although the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade was a historic victory for women’s rights, it is still an extremely controversial subject today and continues to be challenged by various groups.

In addition, on page 4 of the record it states that “federal funds can not be used for abortion nor can anyone with federal health insurance use such funds or plans to obtain an abortion except in instances of rape or incest or if the mother’s life is at risk.” This roadblock places an obstacle in the form of a financial burden on women seeking abortions. In the case of Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and Hodgson v. Minnesota, this court ruled that states were not obligated to spend their own money or use their own facilities to subsidize abortions because women had the ability to go to a private physician to obtain an abortion. However, this can be distinguished from the case at bar because under proposition 417 it requires the trans-vaginal ultra sound be performed, which is a procedure separate from the abortion. Therefore, private insurance should absolutely be able to cover the costs of this additional procedure. Because insurance cannot do this, it places a substantial financial obstacle on women, thus creating an undue burden. Therefore, Proposition 417 is written for the sole purpose of creating unnecessary barriers for women wanting an abortion to go

obtaining an abortion before the fetus is viable (Seward par. 4). The decision of “undue

In Texas, a large cultural controversy has resurfaced. State lawmakers want to introduce a new set of guidelines which would essentially limit the availability of abortions to Texan women. This debate is very clearly divided into two opposing sides: pro-life and pro-choice. The pro-life side wants to pass this law, which says that clinics must be held to hospital grade standards and doctors must have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortion takes place. According to the pro-choice side and abortion clinicians themselves, “the regulations [are] expensive, unnecessary and intended to put many [offices] out of business” (nytimes). This case has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, meaning that

Texas continues to fight women’s rights groups for the life of the “unborn child” and has won on many levels. According to the Texas Abortion Laws, Texas includes mandatory ultrasound imaging and parental consent for minors, and women must make at least four visits to a doctor and receive an ultrasound. Women may only receive a third trimester abortion if it is necessary to prevent death or substantial risk of serious impairment to a women’s physical or mental health, or if fetus has severe and irreversible abnormality. Texas considers an illegal abortion if it destroys the vitality or life of child in birth or before (which otherwise would have been born alive); operating a facility without a license, failure to meet Board of Health standards, or failure to make reports to Department of Health; act preformed after pregnancy with intent to cause termination of pregnancy other than for purpose of birth of live fetus or removal