title:  Despite Republican’s Best Efforts, SCOTUS Just Allowed Louisiana Abortion Clinics To Reopen
text: Much to the dismay of so-called  pro-life  Republicans, the Supreme Court handed down an order allowing Louisiana Abortion clinics to reopen after a fringe right-wing appeals court forced them to close.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued what it called an  emergency decision  that permitted an anti-abortion law they knew was unconstitutional to go into effect in Louisiana. This law, like many others of its kind, did not serve any practical purpose other than to effectively ban all abortion within the state.This particular law required physicians that perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. It s a completely unnecessary requirement since nearly all abortions do not require any form of admittance to a hospital and only serves to place undue burdens on vulnerable women and their physicians that are trying to help them.The Fifth Circuit Court has a history of allowing laws that it knows are going to be found unconstitutional to get implemented anyway. They got clear warnings from the Supreme Court that they should not allow these laws to proceed, due to the obvious unconstitutionality of them plus the precedent of the 5th circuits own decisions getting struck down in the past regarding them. However, they just keep upholding them, forcing a waste of taxpayer money and time by making them get elevated to the Supreme Court of the United States.Twice before, the Fifth Circuit has had decisions get struck down by SCOTUS from laws passed in Texas alone. One time they issued a partial stay, allowing some of Texas s abortion clinics to remain open. A second time SCOTUS handed down a more comprehensive stay of what is the Fifth Circuit s most draconian anti-abortion decision to date, in the case of Whole Woman s Health V. Cole. This is the exact same type of law that the Louisiana one was, in that it called for admitting privileges for doctors that provide abortions.In the Louisiana decision, only Clarence Thomas dissented from the opinion of the court which allowed the state s clinics to re-open   giving an indicator the right-wing s irrational obsession with women s bodies may have finally gone too far.Featured image via wikicommons