Appeals court rules Missouri may enforce strict abortion law

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A U.S. appellate court ruled Monday that Missouri can enforce a law that forces abortion clinics to meet ambulatory surgical center requirements and requires doctors performing abortions to get admitting privileges at local hospitals, despite a 2016 Supreme Court ruling striking down a similar Texas law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit delivered the opinion striking down a ruling from a lower court that eliminated the Missouri law. Abortion rights groups pointed to the Monday ruling as evidence that abortion rights are under threat if Brett Kavanaugh reaches the Supreme Court, since the case could wind up there.

“Today’s ruling should be a stark example of just how easily judges like Brett Kavanaugh can gut women’s constitutional rights, ignoring the real barriers that these medically unnecessary place on women’s access to abortion,” said Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood said in a release that the ruling would shutter all but one abortion clinic in the state because others would not be able to meet the requirements.

Laguens said the appellate court directly overruled a 2016 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a similar law in Texas.

The appellate court did reference the 2016 ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. Two Planned Parenthood clinics in the Missouri area sued in 2017 to get rid of the similar law in Missouri.

A lower court ruled that the law had to be struck down due to the Supreme Court case. But the appellate court, led by George W. Bush appointee Judge Bobby Shepherd, said in its ruling that the decision was wrong because the local Planned Parenthood clinic never asked for a waiver from the state.

Abortion rights groups said the ruling clearly overrides precedent set by the 2016 case.

“The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals once again ignored Supreme Court precedent and what is already settled law,” said Laguens. “Despite a Supreme Court ruling striking down virtually identical restrictions in Texas, judges in the Eighth Circuit continue to re-write the books on abortion access.”

But the anti-abortion group Students for Life said in a statement that the ruling showed “the courts were right to respect efforts to protect women from abortion vendors who have made no plan for emergencies. Legislators have every right to protect women and their preborn infants from disreputable abortionists.”

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