WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Supreme Court justices appeared divided on Wednesday in a significant abortion rights case, with Chief Justice John Roberts representing the possible decisive vote on a challenge to a Louisiana law that might make it harder for females to get the treatment.
A demonstrator holds up an abortion flag beyond the U.S. Supreme Court as justices hear a major abortion case on the legality of a Republican-backed Louisiana law that enforces limitations on abortion doctors, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 4,2020 REUTERS/Tom Brenner
The court, with a 5-4 conservative majority, heard arguments in an appeal by Shreveport-based abortion supplier Hope Medical Group for Ladies seeking to invalidate the 2014 law. The procedure needs that medical professionals who carry out abortions have an often difficult-to-obtain arrangement called “confessing benefits” at a medical facility within 30 miles (48 km) of the center.
The liberal justices, consisting of the court’s three females, appeared hesitant toward that requirement. The conservative justices appeared more receptive.
Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked concerns that suggested they – and perhaps other conservative justices – do not believe the Louisiana law is immediately doomed by a 2016 Supreme Court precedent that overruled similar confessing opportunities constraints in Texas.
Roberts, thought about the court’s ideological center, cast the choosing vote in 2015 when the justices on a 5-4 vote blocked Louisiana’s law from taking effect while the litigation over its legality continued.
That vote brought him into conflict with his position in the Texas case when Roberts was amongst the 3 diss