The US Supreme Court handed down a win for abortion rights voting 5-3 to strike down a restrictive Texas abortion law that activists argued would have shut down all but a handful of clinics in the state. It’s the court’s most sweeping ruling on abortion in two decades. And it could deter other states from imposing strict regulations on clinics as a means of forcing them to close.
The law HB 2 required clinics to have surgical facilities and doctors with admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The justices ruled 5-3 that the law put an “undue burden” on women’s access to abortion. It’s the Supreme Court’s first major ruling on the issue in two decades.