On Wednesday, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments regarding a Louisiana law which requires abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where they perform an abortion. June Medical Services v. Russo is significant because it is the first abortion-related matter heard in several years and because Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh will consider it.
Louisiana officials argued before the Court that women should be protected from unsafe abortion conditions and should be given better care than what the state’s abortion facilities provide. Every year in the U.S., women are sent to the emergency room due to complications related to abortion procedures. The legality of abortion is not being contested, but whether abortion clinics should be held to the same standards of other medical facilities where surgeries are performed.
Marilyn Musgrave, vice president for government affairs for the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, told the Christian Post, “I think today is so critical because if you are logical, if you are intellectually honest, you will know that when a woman goes into a facility to have that [abortion] procedure, regardless of how you feel, whether you’re pro-life or pro-abortion, you know that she deserves health and safety standards to be met in that facility.”
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins weighed in, “How can abortionists say they’re looking out for women when they’re fighting the laws designed to protect them. It was a powerful argument, one that I hope the Court will take seriously. States ought to have the right to regulate abortion clinics, especially when they’ve proven time and time again how insincerely they take women’s health.”
Abortion rights supporters took to the steps outside of the Supreme Court to loudly proclaim how wonderful abortion is and how it is necessary for “health care.” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, incited the hostile crowd by threatening Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, “You will not know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
Now that the oral arguments have been heard, the high court is expected to render a decision by July.
Pray: Pray for wisdom for the Supreme Court. And, pray for an end to abortion. We can continue to create a culture of life by speaking for the unborn through our votes, in our churches, in our communities and with our families!
Religious Liberty
Last month the Supreme Court reviewed a lawsuit brought by a single mother against the state of Montana after its revenue department ruled that taxpayer-funded scholarships could not be used at religious schools.
Kendra Espinoza, along with two other mothers, made use of a Montana scholarship fund to help pay for their children to attend Christian schools. The Montana Supreme Court invalidated the program based on the state’s Blaine Amendment which bars public funds from going to an organization “controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.”
Becket senior counsel Diana Verm told World News that Blaine amendments are “now used to discriminate against any religion in the context of education, limiting school choice for low-income and minority children, children living in remote rural areas, and children with special needs.
“If the high court upholds the scholarship, it might not end the debate over school voucher programs or other public funds flowing to religious schools. But it would make clear that in conversations about school choice, religious schools get a seat at the table and can’t be left out in the cold and excluded from government programs just because they are religious,” commented Verm.
A decision on this case is also expected this summer.