Women’s health providers in Texas had a big Supreme Court win two years ago, and they’re looking to capitalize on it with a major new lawsuit. Whole Women’s Health Alliance and other abortion providers are challenging not just one but a set of Texas’s anti-abortion laws, including unduly harsh licensing standards for clinics, mandatory waiting periods, mandatory ultrasounds, parental consent requirements for minors and a 16-week ban on clinic-provided abortions, among others.
“Texas laws regulating abortion have proliferated over time,” the plaintiffs argue. “Abortion patients and providers now face a dizzying array of medically unnecessary requirements that are difficult, time-consuming, and costly to navigate — sometimes prohibitively so.”
This lawsuit faces a long road to the Supreme Court, but the goal is to get it there while the five justices who formed the majority in the previous Whole Women’s Health case are still on the court.