A divided US Supreme Court struck down Texas abortion restrictions that had threatened to close three quarters of the state's clinics by putting new requirements on facilities and doctors. The five three ruling is the Court's first abortion decision in nearly a decade. Joining us now to discuss the ramifications of this vote and what it means moving forward is Kimberly Robinson. She's Supreme Court report reporter for Bloomberg be
An a based in the Washington metro area. Kimberly, welcome to the show for having me, so tell us exactly what this decision means. Well, the decision here means that the states that are looking to enact abortion regulations will face strict, strict standards um from courts that are looking
at those regulations going forward. So the case here involved to Texas regulations that the states that were intended to make a boys safer for women um and in particular, these regulations require doctors to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and required abortion facilities themselves UM to comply with some stretty, pretty strict standards that are applicable to other outpatient curgical centers. So what were the legal aspects? What was it? What was it the crux of the argument
that they had to decide. Well, so, as I mentioned this, the States said that, you know, these regulations are really meant to ensure that abortions are safe for women. But the challengers here said that that wasn't really the intention of these laws at all, that in fact, these laws were intended to limit access to abortion for the more than five million Texas women who are a child bearing age.
They noted that there were forty abortion clinics serving uh those five million women before these regulations went into place. But if both of these regulations were found to be valid and did go into place, then Texas will be left with just seven or eight clinics um to service all of those women. Now you note or we note our story that abortion rights advocates called the case the biggest since when the Court reaffirmed the constitutional right to end a pregnancy. Uh, what does it mean? Now? Are
lots of laws going to be challenged? What does it mean? Well, there are similar laws in other states, and the course broad language means that those laws are likely unconstitutional. That doesn't mean that states may not enact more abortion regulations. But it does mean that courts are going to take
a very close look at these regulations. So it was an unclear question before today's decision, you know, whether the states would really have to prove the benefits that they that they were claiming these regulations would have, or whether
courts would just kind of take the legislatures at their word. Today, in a five three decision by Justice Bryer on the Court made clear that courts are going to look at the evidence of the benefits and if they're not there, then they're they're going to still those regulations that are going to fall Comblie Robinson, thank you so very much for joining US Supreme Court. Reporter for Bloomberg be An a based in Arlington, Virginia,