Washington (CNN) -- Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices on the Supreme Court on Monday to block a controversial Louisiana abortion law that critics said would have closed nearly every clinic in the state. The 5-4 ruling is a win for supporters of abortion rights who argued that the law was not medically necessary and amounted to a veiled attempt to restrict abortion. The law barred doctors from performing the procedure unless they had admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The majority opinion was penned by Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote that the majority "consequently hold that the Louisiana statute is unconstitutional." Breyer added later: "The evidence also shows that opposition to abortion played a significant role in some hospitals' decisions to deny admitting privileges." The ruling continues a trend of Roberts siding with liberals in major cases. He previously has upheld the program allowing undocumented immigrants who came into the US as children to remain and sided with opinion that extended anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ workers. Four years ago, when Justice Anthony Kennedy was still on the bench, the court struck down a similar law out of Texas. Much has changed since then, however, as Kennedy has been replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, who is considered more conservative on the issue. Supporters of abortion rights feared not only that recent precedent would be in jeopardy, but that the strengthened conservative majority might begin to chip away at landmark opinions like Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld a woman's right to have an abortion. Roberts wrote a separate concurring opinion also citing the Texas law. "The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana's law cannot stand under our precedents," the chief justice wrote. In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas again said Roe should be revisited. "Roe is grievously wrong for many reasons," Thomas wrote, but the most fundamental is that its core holding -- that the Constitution protects a woman's right to abort her unborn child --finds no support in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany blasted the ruling as "unfortunate," and took aim at the justices who sided with the majority. "Instead of valuing fundamental democratic principles, unelected Justices have intruded on the sovereign prerogatives of state governments by imposing their own policy preference in favor of abortion to override legitimate abortion safety regulations," McEnany said in a statement. The case has been closely watched as multiple largely red states continue to advance abortion restrictions and largely blue states move to protect access. None of the nine so-called gestational bans -- which bar abortions past a certain point in pregnancy -- passed last year have gone into effect, after most of them have been blocked by courts.
@Stevenson I think he feels strongly about independent judiciary. Presidents criticize individual SCOTUS rulings. And Roberts doesn't like that. Trump has attacked the entire court as an institution. Roberts is a right wing Republican but he does believe in separation of powers. Also, Trump wasn't entirely clueless for once when he suggested the Court doesn't like him. Bush 2 and Obama in 16 total years 8 times asked the Supreme Court for summary judgement to block a lower court ruling, and 4 were granted. In less than 4 years Trump has asked 25 times. He got it 17 times but the Court & Roberts specifically are getting tired of being Trump's errand boys. (I say boys because the women don't vote with him.) Also a bad argument in that the law supposedly was to protect women's health but every medical group in the country said it was nothing to do with women's health but was intended to overturn Roe v Wade. So Roberts could argue he opposes women's rights (he does) but that this was a bad legal argument (it was).
Excellent answer. I think my point is that what I appreciate is that Roberts is striving to have at least one branch of our government function normally, and he's doing that by being less doctrinaire. He is protecting the courts and his institution from the rabid tribalism of the day.
I wonder if McEnany knows that the Supreme Court justices have never been elected since the beginning because our founding fathers set it up that way on purpose. Perhaps a history lesson might open her eyes. Do you think they can be opened? i mean, is it even possible? I'm wagering that the answer is no.
It doesn't matter if her eyes are open--she's working as the press secretary to Trump, which means she prides herself professionally on lying.
