High court to decide whether to take up major abortion case
The court is considering an emergency appeal from abortion providers in Texas, who want the justices to block two provisions of a state law that already has forced the closure of roughly half the licensed abortion clinics in the state.
The Texas law is among a wave of state measures in recent years that have placed restrictions on when in a pregnancy abortions may be performed, imposed limits on abortions using drugs instead of surgery and increased standards for clinics and the doctors who work in them.
"Courts have been fumbling for years about what does it mean to be undue under Casey," said Priscilla Smith, a Yale Law School professor and defender of abortion rights.
[...] a different set of judges from the same appeals court has prevented Mississippi from enforcing its own admitting privileges requirement because doing so would close the last abortion clinic in the state.
[...] Carter Snead, a Notre Dame University law professor and abortion opponent, said Kennedy generally has been willing to sustain legal restrictions on abortion.
"[...] during his tenure on the court, he has only struck down one abortion restriction, namely, the spousal notification provision at issue in Planned Parenthood v. Casey," Snead said.