Kramer Levin Assists in Landmark Reproductive Rights Victory

On June 27, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Texas’s harsh abortion limits in a 5-3 decision. Kramer Levin filed an amicus brief in support of this important victory.

The decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt has been called the most significant victory in a generation upholding a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions. The Supreme Court held that a Texas statute mandating doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital and clinics to meet the standards of surgical centers placed an undue burden on the ability of women to obtain pre-viability abortions. Justice Breyer delivered an opinion joined by Justices Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. The decision makes clear that language in the plurality opinion in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), requires courts to balance the burdens a law imposes on abortion access against the medical benefits the law confers. The Court rejected the view of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that courts should defer to the legislature and not consider the existence or nonexistence of medical benefits when determining whether a regulation on abortion constitutes an undue burden. Whole Woman’s Health should constrain the efforts by other states to nullify women’s reproductive rights by imposing such substantial burdens on abortion providers that most, if not all, have to close their doors.

Kramer Levin filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of ten women who chose to have an abortion. Because many members of the Supreme Court may believe they have never met anyone who has had or needed an abortion, our clients came forward to share their personal stories. Our clients included a computer science professor, a leader in the financial services industry, an anthropologist and human rights activist, a member of the clergy, a famous actress, a public relations professional, authors, doctors, wives and mothers.

This brief urging the Supreme Court to reject Texas’s clinic-shutdown law was prepared by partner Michael J. Dell, associates Scott Ruskay-Kidd, Sarah C. White, Noah Hertz-Bunzl, Evie Spanos and Boaz Cohen, former associate Lynda Tricarico, and paralegal Santo Cipolla.