Women win when Supreme Court decides biggest abortion rights case in decades

The Supreme Court just issued an historic decision upholding a woman’s right to abortion and striking down Texas’ HB 2, a law designed to use medically unnecessary restrictions to close abortion clinics and deny women access to reproductive health care.

The Court’s ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is an incredible victory. It’s a win for women in Texas, especially women living in rural areas, who, as clinics have been forced to shut down, have been unable to access care, or have had to travel hundreds of miles, including across state lines, to do so.

The decision is also a victory for women in states across the country that have passed or are attempting to pass laws like the one in Texas. These laws are known as TRAP laws — Targeted Restrictions of Abortion Providers — because they use regulations and restrictions to make it impossible for abortion providers to provide care. They are being pushed across the country by right-wing anti-woman legislators who want to legislate abortion out of existence. In just the last few months, CREDO members in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Florida, Indiana, and Alabama, took action to try to block TRAP laws being promoted by right-wing anti-woman legislators in their states.

These extremist legislators, backed by anti-abortion activists, claim that TRAP laws are meant to protect women, but the Supreme Court just shut that argument down. Justice Ginsberg went so far as to call those claims “beyond rational belief.” The Court’s decision calls into question the constitutionality of TRAP laws across the country and puts lawmakers who will stop at nothing to keep women from accessing abortion care on notice that their actions are in direct conflict with women’s constitutional rights.

While today’s Court decision helps push back against attempts by states to take away women’s rights, it’s important to remember that we need to fight anti-abortion laws at the federal level as well. The Hyde Amendment’s ban on federal funding for abortion care keeps tens of thousands of women living in poverty, the majority of whom are women of color, from accessing abortion no matter what state they live in. You can join almost 30,000 CREDO activists who are helping build momentum in Congress to pass the EACH Woman Act and repeal Hyde for good by signing our petition here.