Monday’s Supreme Court Decision around a Texas law dealing with women’s access to safe abortions could see ripples throughout the industry, even here in Virginia.



Monday’s Supreme Court Decision around a Texas law dealing with women’s access to safe abortions could see ripples throughout the industry, even here in Virginia.

“It won’t change the law today,” said Cianti Stewart-Reid, Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, the health clinic and abortion provider’s advocacy wing here in VA. She’s talking specifically about 2011’s now infamous, GOP-created TRAP laws which, among other things (like fetal ultrasounds), forced abortion clinics to physically update facilities to ambulatory-standards. These strict new standards, according to Stewart-Reid, are at least partially responsible for the closure of seven clinics across the Commonwealth, including the busiest clinic in the state.

Stewart-Reid said the decision wont reopen those clinics tomorrow, but it does set the org up to argue any current or future restrictions should be judged for their “medical appropriateness” and not based on person or religious opinions.

It’s this “medical necessity/appropriateness” concept that was at the core of yesterday’s ruling. Back in 1992, SCOTUS ruled limits on abortion could not cause “undo burden” on women trying to receive them. And the restrictions in Texas, one of which dealt with physically modifying clinics to match hospital-like facilities (similar to VA’s law) could put too much of a burden on women, illegally impacting their access to abortions.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote in support of abortion providers in yesterday’s majority opinion saying “neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes. Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a pre-viability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, and each violates the Federal Constitution.”

“This is a first step” Stewart-Reid said. “Politicians will not stop access to safe, legal abortions and use these restrictions to do that.”

While former-Gov. Bob McDonald signed VA’s TRAP laws and packed the state Board of Health (BOH) to approve them, one of Gov. McAuliffe’s first moves in office was to rearrange the BOH with more folks sympathetic to abortion issues. This actually started the very very slow process of reversing TRAP laws a few years ago.

This is one of the reasons why there hasn’t been a notable law suit against the state laws as clinics have chosen to wait for the BOH to remove or reduce limits on abortion without legal intervention.

“The rules that are currently being considered are rules that implement the current law,” said Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, Executive Director of the Virginia ACLU. She said the SCOTUS decision didn’t actually answer questions around the TRAP laws, but it did raise questions which could and should impede the passage of any access-limiting rules.

“The board, looking at the decision [from Monday], needs to be sure the rules they adopt… are justified by women’s health and medical necessity,” Gastañaga said. “We don’t think there are any kinds of that evidence on much of what they’re looking [at] – they’re amending it because they’ve found there’s no medical underpinning to what’s in place.”

RVAMag has been covering those hearings, which often stretch from sun-up to sun-down, and offer no shortage of opinions on either side.

Among those in support of the restrictive laws is Leslie Blackwell (pictured below), co-coordinator for the Silent No More Awareness Campaign of Virginia. She claimed to have had several abortions in her 20’s and has regretted them ever since.

“When we tell our stories, it’s amazing because 1 out of every 3 have experienced abortion…that’s the shameful secret you never talk about,” she said while waiting in line during the Sept. 2015 BOH meeting. “And so for us to break that silence, I really believe we’re the courageous ones because as we speak, you can’t believe how many people come out of the woodwork. We see the harm that abortion has done to men and women.”

But there is good news for those who support Planned Parenthood and a women’s right to chose, Blackwell isn’t a doctor. At that same meeting last year, Dr. Serina Floyd (pictured below), a gynecologist out of Northern Virginia, pleaded with the board to amend the regulations and reduce the undo burden, and spoke of the lack of medical evidence supporting TRAP laws.

“These restrictions are the latest example of a long-termed campaign to end access to safe abortions,” she said. “Rather than promote and protect patients’ health and safety, these restrictions serve to do the exact opposite imposing unnecessary burdens on clinics that could result in their closures and the loss of access to much needed care for thousands of women, care that includes STI and cancer screenings, birth control, and mammograms.”

AG Herring had similarly come out agianst the TRAP laws last year and celebrated the new decision.

“[Monday’s] decision should help put a stop to the recent wave of state-level, medically unnecessary TRAP laws designed to scare, shame, or bar women from making their own healthcare decisions,” Herring wrote in a release sent out shortly after the decision was release. “The Court was under no illusions about the true intention of these laws, and Virginians should not be either… I believe that a woman’s right to make her own healthcare decisions must exist in practice, not just in theory.”

So what happens next? Well you can still have your voice heard as the BOH is still accepting public comment through their website till July 1st here – if you’re for or against it, do your civic duty and say something.