Keywords
Congressional power, Due Process Clause, Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), Women's Health Protection Act (WHPA), abortion rights, state regulation
Abstract
The United States Supreme Court’s recent major abortion ruling in June Medical Services L.L.C. v. Russo was a win for abortion rights supporters, but a costly one. Although the June Medical Court struck down a Louisiana law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, a majority of the Justices—and most importantly, Chief Justice Roberts, whose concurrence constitutes the Court’s holding—stressed that Casey’s constitutional standard for pre-viability abortion regulations is not the amorphous balancing test the Court suggested in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, but a more deferential one under which a pre-viability regulation typically will be sustained if it does not place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before viability.
Recommended Citation
Thomas J. Molony,
A Costly Victory: June Medical, Federal Abortion Legislation, and Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment,
74 Ark. L. Rev.
(2021).
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uark.edu/alr/vol74/iss1/2
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