SCOTUS: What’s at Stake?

Mary Kate Knorr
June 20, 2016
We’re getting down to the wire.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to release the most significant Supreme Court decision on abortion in over two decades – Whole Women’s Health v. Hellersedt.

Illinois Right to Life teamed up with Chicago’s Thomas More Society to write a legal brief on behalf of you – our members – to help argue in support of the pro-life law. 

This decision will answer the question: just how much oversight can states have on abortion clinics?

Here’s three vital points you need to know about this decision:

1. The lead plaintiff for the abortion industry has been cited for health and sanitary violations.

We were so shocked by this revelation that we included it in our legal brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Alito brought up our point during oral arguments saying [1]:
“…one of the amicus briefs cites instance after instance where Whole Woman’s [abortion] facilities have been cited for really appalling violations when they were inspected: Holes in the floor where rats could come in, the lack of any equipment to adequately sterilize instruments.”
This is the same abortion chain that is complaining to the Court it doesn’t need more healthy and safety oversight!

2. Illinois has been there, done that. 

Illinois had passed a similar law to the Texas one that is being challenged. Our law never went into effect. Decades later, we now can see the harm a lack of oversight into abortion clinics has caused [2]:

 

…. abortion clinics in Illinois were inspected an average of once every 9 years while tanning salons and nursing home were inspected every year. 

 

…. in just 3 years and 24 abortion clinics, 193 health and safety violations were found in Illinois abortion clinics.

 

For example:
… “OR #2 and #3 contained shoes stored with an open box of surgical gloves. Four (4) of 16 gynecological cannulas [surgical tools inserted into a woman’s uterus] in OR 2 were stained with a brown substance.”

3. Annually, approximately 204 women require hospitalization following an abortion in Texas [3].

Abortion complications can be serious. This is why it is so important for abortion clinics to be near a hospital to give women emergency treatment should they require it.

 

We applaud Texas for bringing abortion clinics up to meet the basic standards of other outpatient surgical centers.

 

We’re praying the U.S. Supreme Court sides with our amicus legal brief and upholds the pro-life Texas law. Stay tuned. The decision should be released within the next week.