最高法院驳回路易斯安那州限制性堕胎法
中心容纳…… 现在。
最高法院驳回路易斯安那州限制性堕胎法
The center holds… 现在。
当肯尼迪大法官于2018年退休时，他在LGBTQIA权利方面的遗产是否能在一个更保守的法院中幸存下来，这个法院包括特朗普任命的戈萨奇大法官和卡瓦诺大法官。 Last week, 博斯托克诉克莱顿县案 brought good news: Gorsuch wrote the 6–3 opinion holding that Title VII’s prohibition of employment discrimination on the basis of sex meant that “an employer who fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender defies the law.”
另一个问题涉及堕胎权的命运。 Kennedy coauthored the joint opinion in 计划生育联合会诉凯西案, which declined to overrule 罗伊诉韦德案. 凯西然而，它为各州的堕胎法规打开了大门，这些法规不会对孕妇的决定施加“不适当的负担”。 After 凯西, many states pursued targeted regulation of abortion providers or “TRAP” laws. In 2016, Kennedy joined the liberal justices in Whole Women Health诉Hellerstedt案, holding that Texas’s law requiring that physicians who perform abortions must have “admitting privileges” at a hospital within 30 miles unconstitutionally imposed an undue burden. This term, in June医疗服务诉Russo案 the Court considered Louisiana’s nearly identical TRAP law. 法院观察人士想知道：还会有五票否决这项法律吗？ Or would the Court overrule or distinguish Hellerstedt?
The answer came on June 29, 2020, when the Court (这份意见书由布雷耶大法官撰写，金斯伯格、卡根和索托马约尔大法官也加入了这份意见书) struck down Louisiana’s law on the basis of Hellerstedt. Chief Justice Roberts, who dissented in Hellerstedt, provided the critical fifth vote, concurring in the judgment but not the reasoning of the opinion. Writing that he continues to believe Hellerstedt was incorrect, he nonetheless concurred on the basis of precedent: Louisiana’s law “imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law.”
In 6月医疗, Breyer begins by repeating Hellerstedt’s holding: “‘[u]nnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion impose an undue burden on the right’ and are therefore ‘constitutionally invalid.’” According to Hellerstedt, to assess whether a law regulating abortion poses an “undue burden,” a court must independently review the legislative findings upon which the law rest and weigh the law’s “asserted benefits against the burdens” it imposes on abortion access. Breyer concluded that the district court in June Medical correctly applied that test after a six-day trial about Louisiana’s law.
布雷耶列举了一些地方法院关于福利缺失的调查结果：“路易斯安那州的堕胎非常安全”，因此“没有新法律帮助解决的重大健康问题”。 在负担方面，挑战法律的医生尽管“善意努力”，但仍无法获得入院特权。 这项法律的结果是，“堕胎提供者的数量和地理分布将大幅减少”，整个州只剩下一两个。 因此，“许多在路易斯安那州寻求安全、合法堕胎的妇女将无法获得堕胎”，而那些能够获得堕胎的妇女“将面临巨大障碍”。 因为路易斯安那州（像许多州一样）要求孕妇在堕胎前至少24小时“接受超声波检查并接受强制性咨询”，一些妇女可能不得不花“近20个小时”开车来回或找过夜的住处。 这一负担将“不成比例地落在贫穷妇女身上”。
Breyer concluded that the evidence supporting the district court’s conclusions was “even stronger and more detailed” than in Hellerstedt. Therefore, the Court of Appeals should have deferred to that court unless the latter’s extensive factual findings were “clearly erroneous.” Roberts similarly concluded that the district court’s findings revealed no “clear error” and should bind the Court “in this case.”
Regardless of Roberts’ motivation, 6月医疗 shows that the undue burden test can have real force against TRAP laws.
Instead of applying that deferential standard, the Court of Appeals second-guessed the district court and concluded that the impact of Louisiana’s law was “dramatically less” than that of the Texas law. It argued that the doctors did not try hard enough to obtain admitting privileges. In their dissents, Justices Alito (joined by Kavanaugh) and Gorsuch argued similarly and at length. These dissents ignored facts that Breyer stressed: for example, to gain admitting privileges, a doctor typically has to admit a certain number of patients per year, but doctors who specialize in performing abortions cannot satisfy that requirement because they typically do not admit patients to a hospital. Furthermore, “opposition to abortion played a significant role in some hospitals’ decision to deny admitting privileges.”
Justice Thomas was the only dissenter who expressly called for overruling 罗伊。 He used terms like a woman’s “purported” or “putative” right to convey his view that there is no constitutional basis for any “right” to terminate a pregnancy or to challenge a state’s ability to “regulate or even prohibit abortion.”
Reversing 罗伊 was not, however, before the Court. With Chief Justice Roberts concurring in the judgment, the center holds, for now, with respect to reaffirming 罗伊, 凯西, and Hellerstedt。 Perhaps Roberts provided the fifth vote 通过强调遵循先例的重要性来捍卫法院的合法性. Or perhaps Roberts is attempting 来拯救共和党 in an election year: reversing Hellerstedt might have opened the door to a slew of new TRAP laws, leading to heightened liberal and progressive concerns about the composition of the Court.
不管罗伯茨的动机是什么，这个案例表明，不正当负担测试法对陷阱法具有真正的效力。 While five justices concluded that Louisiana’s law was an unconstitutional instant replay of Texas’s law, there was not a similar majority with respect to what counts as an undue burden under 凯西. Roberts criticized the benefit/burden inquiry that Breyer elaborated in Hellerstedt and 6月医疗 because such a test, isolated from 凯西, will lead courts to weigh “imponderable values” with “no meaningful way to compare them.” 这很讽刺。 Conservative justices have argued that 凯西’sundue burden test alone does not provide courts enough guidance. In Hellerstedt, Breyer offered concrete guidance for assessing whether a burden was “undue.” Roberts might well uphold different restrictions on abortion in future cases or—in a case raising the issue—support overruling 凯西 or 罗伊. 这再次证明，对于那些支持将堕胎作为生殖正义一部分的宪法权利的人来说，2020年的总统选举是多么紧迫。
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