An eight-justice Supreme Court has reversed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt (formerly Whole Woman's Health v. Cole), 5-3.
 
The case was brought by the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of independent abortion facilities in Texas.
 
The case involves Texas' H.B. 2, a pro-life law that, aside from restricting abortion to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, required abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their offices and abortion facilities to meet the same health standards as other ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs).
 
Those regulations caused the number of abortion facilities to drop from 41 to eight according to Planned Parenthood, closing 13 abortion facilities in one day.
 
The decision, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, says that both requirements place a substantial burden on women's right to exercise their reproductive rights, including the right to obtain an abortion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote her own concurring opinion, writing that "complications from an abortion are both rare and rarely dangerous."

Justices Samuel Alito wrote the dissent. He joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts. 
 
Justice Thomas would have upheld the law in its entirety, writing that the "decision exemplifies the Court's troubling tendency 'to bend the rules when any effort to limit abortion, or even to speak in opposition to abortion, is at issue.'" Justices Roberts and Alito would have remanded the case to the Fifth Circuit, a common tactic for a Supreme Court that is not working with all nine justices.
 
"Amazing Grace" vs. "Hail satan!"
 
The law generated white-hot controversy before it ever passed, as hundreds of activists on both sides of the issue flooded the state Capitol in Austin during the sweltering summer of 2013. At one point, pro-life advocates sang "Amazing Grace" while pro-abortion activists drowned them out by chanting "Hail satan!"
 
Wendy Davis waged an 11-hour-long filibuster that...
 
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