Oklahoma top court strikes down abortion restrictions News
Oklahoma top court strikes down abortion restrictions

The Oklahoma Supreme Court [official website] on Tuesday struck down [opinion] a law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. Senate Bill 1848 [text, PDF] was passed in 2014 and put on hold [JURIST reports] by the state Supreme Court. In its ruling Tuesday, the court found the “statute unconstitutional because it creates an undue burden on a woman’s access to abortion, violating protected rights under our federal Constitution, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt [opinion, PDF] … and also under the Oklahoma single subject rule [Okla. Const. art. 5, §57].”

The US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] 5-3 in Whole Woman’s Health [SCOTUSblog materials] in June that a Texas law [HB2 text] imposing certain requirements on abortion clinics and doctors creates an undue burden on access to abortion, and is therefore unconstitutional. A collection of Texas abortion providers challenged provisions of HB2 requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital and requiring abortion clinics to conform to state standards for ambulatory surgical centers on the grounds that such requirements violated the Fourteenth Amendment [text] as interpreted by the court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey [text].