New York, NY, January 7, 2016 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has joined with the National Women’s Law Center and 47 other organizations on an amicus brief in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole, highlighting the negative impact that Texas’s abortion restrictions have on women’s economic security and equal participation in social and economic life.
This case before the U.S. Supreme Court challenges parts of Texas’s H.B. 2, a law which imposes medically unnecessary, burdensome requirements on abortion providers and clinics. If the law is upheld, it will effectively shut down more than 75 percent of all women’s health clinics that provide abortion services in the state, leaving at most 10 providers in all of Texas - second-most populous state in the nation - threatening women’s ability to make personal decisions about their lives and health.
“This law’s restrictions unduly burden women’s reproductive decision-making, depriving them of equal dignity promised by the Constitution and should therefore be struck down,” said Marvin D. Nathan, ADL National Chair. “The reality is that with so few providers located in the largest state in the continental U.S., women in Texas will have a theoretical right to choose, however the practicalities of distance will make the choice moot for many who cannot make the necessary travel to a medical provider. The decision in this case could have far-reaching implications for reproductive freedom across the nation.”
“These medically unnecessary restrictions on abortion access have a substantial impact on women and their families,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “The law threatens women’s economic well-being, job security, workforce participation, and educational attainment, and has a particularly harmful impact on low-income women, women of color, women in low-wage jobs, and women who already have children.”
ADL has filed amicus briefs in every major Supreme Court case since Roe v. Wade supporting reproductive freedom and opposing efforts to curtail abortion rights.
Following the deadly shooting spree at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, ADL released a report examining anti-abortion violence and extremism across the U.S., which outlines various incidents that took place over the past decade, and discusses the issue of deep anti-abortion animus as a strong motivation for carrying out acts of terror against women’s health clinics.