Supreme Court Ruling Could Impact Florida Abortion Law

The fate of a Florida law set to go into effect Friday is unknown following a Monday U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike down a similar measure in Texas.

Florida House Bill 1411places a number of restrictions on the Sunshine State’s abortion industry. The bill, passed by both houses and signed by Gov. Rick Scott in March, stops taxpayer funding for clinics that provide abortions. It also requires annual licensing inspections for clinics and strictly prohibits the purchase, sale or transfer of fetal remains.

See also:

• U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Texas Abortion Law

The potential legal sticking point in the measure is another provision included in the bill that requires all doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The Supreme Court announced a 5-3 decision Monday that strikes down a Texas law with a similar admitting privileges provision.

The Texas law required that all doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where they practice. Florida’s law doesn’t set a mileage requirement. Instead, it requires admitting privileges “at a hospital within a reasonable proximity unless the clinic has a transfer agreement with the hospital.”

The Texas law also required that clinics that offer abortion services must meet the same building standards as those set for ambulatory surgery centers. Florida’s law has no such requirement.

Writing for the majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said that the provisions in the Texas law "vastly increase the obstacles confronting women seeking abortions in Texas without providing any benefit to women’s health capable of withstanding any meaningful scrutiny."

At issue was whether the restrictions put an "undue burden" on a woman's constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy before the fetus attains viability.

Opponents of the law said women in Texas already have a tough time getting abortions because the number of clinics has been drastically reduced. Should the law have been upheld, they argued, Texas would have been left with only nine functioning abortion clinics for a state with 13.5 million women and girls.

Texas argued that it was bolstering safety at these clinics. In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued in his dissent that the same scrutiny was not applied when the court upheld the University of Texas's race-conscious admissions policy just last week.

"Yet the same State gets no deference under the undue-burden test, despite producing evidence that abortion safety, one rationale for Texas’ law, is medically debated," Thomas wrote.

But Breyer said the court found no such evidence.

"We add that, when directly asked at oral argument whether Texas knew of a single instance in which the new requirement would have helped even one woman obtain better treatment, Texas admitted that there was no evidence in the record of such a case," he wrote.

Just what Monday’s ruling will mean for Florida’s law is unknown. The ruling is currently under review by Gov. Rick Scott's office.

Patch’s Alex Wukman contributed to this report

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