The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that a Louisiana law that threatened to leave just one abortion clinic operating in the state is an unconstitutional burden on women’s rights.
In a major win for reproductive rights activists, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the court’s four liberals for the case which involved a Louisiana law requiring doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic.
Challengers of the law alleged the restriction would limit the state to just one abortion provider at a single clinic.
The case, which featured the first abortion law to be argued before President Donald Trump’s two appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, came just four years after the top court ruled that a similar abortion law passed in Texas was unconstitutional.
Justice Clarence Thomas, in his dissent, said that the landmark Roe v. Wade case that paved the way for legalized abortion in the U.S. is “without a shred of support” from the Constitution.