Kramer Levin Represents Women Who Have Had Abortions in Supreme Court Challenge to Louisiana’s Anti-Abortion Law

On Dec. 2, 2019, Kramer Levin filed an amicus brief in support of abortion providers in Louisiana who are challenging a law designed to shut down the state’s abortion clinics.

The Louisiana law is identical to a Texas law the Supreme Court struck down three years ago in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. It requires that doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Because Louisiana hospitals are reluctant to grant such privileges, the law, if the Court upholds it, will likely lead all but one of the state’s remaining clinics to shut their doors. The trial court record shows the law provides no health benefit, its purpose is to force clinics to close, and clinic closures would present a substantial obstacle to abortion access, particularly for poor women.

The Court also granted Louisiana’s cross-petition for certiorari to address the question whether clinics and doctors may continue to assert the constitutional right of women to abortion. For more than forty years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly, and without exception, permitted abortion providers to assert the abortion right of their patients. If the Court were now to reverse course, challenges to abortion restrictions would have to be brought by women who are in the process of seeking abortions – which would make it far more difficult to challenge abortion restrictions.

Kramer Levin filed an amicus brief on behalf of eleven women who chose to have an abortion. Because some 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. Their stories demonstrate the enormous burden that limited access to abortion imposes, the obstacles to pursuing litigation that individual women face, and the reasons why abortion providers should continue to have standing to assert the constitutional right to abortion.

Our brief urging the Supreme Court to reject Louisiana’s clinic-shutdown law and arguments against standing was prepared by Litigation partner Michael J. Dell, associates Evie Spanos, Aaron L. Webman, Irene Weintraub, Dayna M. Chikamoto and Astrid Ackerman; law clerk Andrea Maddox; and paralegal Jessica Halpert. A link to the brief can be found here.