SCOTUS’ Abortion Decision Is A Win — But It’s Also Just A First Step

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of women’s reproductive rights in a 5-4 decision on June 29 by striking down a Louisiana law that would have limited the state to a single abortion clinic. The law, which the Louisiana legislature passed in 2014, required doctors who provide abortion services to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, which are “notoriously difficult” for abortion providers to obtain. The Louisiana doctors and medical clinic that sued for the law to be overturned said it would have left one doctor to care for nearly 10,000 women seeking abortion services each year.

Chief Justice John Roberts cast the crucial fifth vote to declare the law unconstitutional, despite voting in 2016 to uphold a similar Texas law. While the win was critical to preserving the three remaining abortion clinics in Lousiana, the SCOTUS decision only further reveals the plight of women’s reproductive rights in America.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the number of abortion clinics in Louisiana has been dwindling for years. From 2014 to 2017, there was a 20% decrease in facilities providing abortions in Lousiana — a reduction that also reflects a national phenomenon; there were 1,671 facilities in 2014 and 1,587 in 2017. Louisiana specifically, though, has passed nearly 100 anti-abortion restrictions since Roe v. Wade, and the majority of Lousiana women live in the 94% of counties that have no abortion clinics.

In Louisiana and states across the United States, these strict abortion restrictions have disproportionally burdened low-income and minority communities. The unwanted pregnancy rate among women below the federal poverty level is more than five times that of women with an income at or above 200% of poverty, with low-income patients accounting for 75% of abortions in 2014. And because the poverty rate for people of color is much higher than non-POC, women of color are more likely to suffer from limited abortion resources. Although more than half of Louisiana’s population is white, women of color received 70% of abortions in 2015. Doubled with the fact that these communities already face challenges accessing health care, as seen with COVID-19, they are at a significant disadvantage in finding reproductive services.

Not only has COVID-19 made these disparities in reproductive health care starker than ever, but several states have also used the pandemic as a justification to attempt to ban abortions. Ten states have proposed abortion suspensions since the pandemic began based on the claim that they are nonessential medical procedures. Arkansas is the only state that has successfully ceased the practice of surgical abortions during COVID-19, but ultimately, it’s just one of more than 479 abortion restrictions that have been enacted nationwide since 2011.

So while SCOTUS' decision to strike down this Louisiana law is certainly a win for reproductive rights activists, there are still hundreds of other anti-reproductive rights laws that have burdened and continue to burden women in the U.S. We must put into perspective how much further the battle for reproductive rights has left to go, and we have to recognize that there is no better and more pivotal time than now to keep fighting. The U.S. is experiencing a significant historical and political turning point, and we must take advantage of this opportunity no matter the upheaval.