Justice Anthony Kennedy sided with the Supreme Court's liberal wing to strike down an anti-abortion law in Texas. | Getty Supreme Court strikes restrictive Texas abortion law The ruling is likely to galvanize anti-abortion votes in the presidential race and highlight the political fight over who will be appointed to the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on Monday struck a sweeping anti-abortion law in Texas, granting abortion rights supporters their most significant legal victory in a generation.

Justice Anthony Kennedy sided with the court’s liberals in the 5-3 decision that struck two key provisions in the Texas law, which the court said placed unconstitutional burdens on women seeking abortion. It marks the first time the court has imposed limits on state abortion restrictions in more than 15 years and pushes back against a wave of restrictive state laws enacted in recent years.


"We conclude that neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens upon access that each imposes," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court. "Each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access and each violates the federal Constitution.”

The ruling is likely to galvanize anti-abortion votes in the presidential race and highlight the political fight over who will be appointed to the vacant seat on the Supreme Court. Anti-abortion groups were hoping to enact laws similar to Texas in other parts of the country. A handful of states had already done so; those laws are now likely to face immediate challenges in the lower courts.

In a pair of tweets Hillary Clinton immediately hailed the ruling. “SCOTUS's decision is a victory for women in Texas and across America. Safe abortion should be a right—not just on paper, but in reality.”

“This fight isn't over: The next president has to protect women's health,” the presumptive Democratic nominee added. “Women won't be 'punished' for exercising their basic rights.” That was directed at Donald Trump, who in March suggested that women be punished for having abortions — if the procedure were outlawed — before reversing himself.

In Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a group of Texas abortion clinics had challenged the state law that required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and to perform abortions only in ambulatory surgical centers.

Opponents of the law said the restrictions have already closed half of the state’s abortion clinics, imposing an undue burden on a woman’s access to abortion. Texas argued that states have a long-standing right to regulate medical procedures to ensure patient safety.

"The decision erodes states’ lawmaking authority to safeguard the health and safety of women and subjects more innocent life to being lost," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement after the ruling.

Abortion opponents warned that the ruling would make abortion dangerous for women.

“Today’s abortion clinics are the true ‘back alleys’ of abortion mythology,” said Denise Burke, vice president of legal affairs at Americans United for Life. “They consistently operate in the ‘red light district’ of American medicine where the problem of substandard abortion providers is longstanding and pervasive. The fight against this public health crisis will continue, despite today’s ruling.”

But the White House and abortion rights supporters hailed the decision.

“These restrictions harm women's health and place an unconstitutional obstacle in the path of a woman's reproductive freedom,” President Barack Obama said in a statement. “We remain strongly committed to the protection of women's health, including protecting a woman's access to safe, affordable health care and her right to determine her own future.”

The Supreme Court ruled that the entire ambulatory surgical center and admitting privilege requirements had to be struck, arguing that it was too hard to parse portions of the surgical center requirements to see whether any of it was legitimate. “The risk of harm caused by inconsistent application of only a fraction of interconnected regulations counsels against doing so,” Breyer wrote.

That marks a big win for the clinics because the lower courts could have spent time sorting out those details.

The three dissenting justices — Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts — wrote that the surgical provision could have been sliced up.

Anti-abortion activists, some of whom had camped out in front of the court overnight, derided the decision. "Unelected judges decided that they know better," said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students For Life. "Every time a woman goes to seek an abortion she's going to wonder if the Supreme Court let her down."

At the other side of the court steps, abortion rights activists played Queen's "We are the Champions" and Beyonce's "Who Runs the World, Girls" to celebrate the decision.

"Let this be our testament, let this be a model: you can't mess with us, you can't take our rights away," said Andrea Ferrigno of Whole Woman's Health.

Caroline Kelly contributed to this report.