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DC – Members of the Project 21 black leadership network condemned Monday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Noting that black women are disproportionately at risk of unnecessary harm during abortion procedures, Project 21 had appealed to the justices through a legal brief that argued against throwing out "a substantial medical benefit that justifies any minimal burden" and thus allowing abortionists to escape oversight and safety requirements.
"It's a sad day when the Supreme Court rules against the preservation of life. With this decision, it is signaling that not all black lives matter," said Project 21 member Donna Jackson.
"The abortion lobby's fight against the most reasonable health and medical standards shows that its priorities lie with killing unborn black babies at any cost. This decision reveals the radical left's willingness to make unsafe, back alley-style abortions mainstream, without regard to the health and welfare of black mothers."
The Court's thin 5-4 decision found Louisiana's Act 620 unconstitutional. The law required "that every physician who performs or induces an abortion shall 'have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced.'"
In the opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that the Court's four left-wing justices agreed with a lower court ruling asserting such protections prevent women from seeking abortions and offer "no significant health-related benefits." Chief Justice John Roberts joined the four, writing that he did so because of legal precedent found in a Texas case decided by the Court in 2016.
In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that Roberts and the others relied on false precedent: "[T]hose decisions created the right to abortion out of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the Constitution's text. Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled… [W]e have neither jurisdiction nor constitutional authority to declare Louisiana's duly enacted law unconstitutional."
"Where I live in Missouri, the Planned Parenthood clinic has defied local safety regulations, operating without a license after refusing to permit its doctors to answer for dozens of ambulance response calls to their facility. The Louisiana abortion safety law would have required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital," noted Project 21 Co-Chairman Stacy Washington. "With this ruling, the Supreme Court has affirmed that abortion in the United States is no longer safe, legal or rare. In the future, historians will look on this ruling with the same disdain as prior Supreme Court rulings that upheld slavery – incorrect and incomprehensible."
Declaring that "[t]he black community experiences a disproportionate share of abortions, often from doctors that do not have the same credentials as those who perform other forms of surgery," Project 21 participated in this case through an amici curiae ("friends of the court") legal brief authored by former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray. That brief further argued: "As the primary recipient of abortion services in the state of Louisiana, black women share the State's interest in ensuring abortion providers meet hospital credentialing requirements and can provide appropriate continuity of care."
The brief Project 21 joined was spearheaded by The Radiance Foundation. It also featured black pro-life groups including Civil Rights for the Unborn, the National Black Pro-Life Union, the Frederick Douglass Foundation and Douglass Leadership Institute.
"The Louisiana bill was not crafted by conservative white men as many seem to think, but by a pro-life liberal who is black and female," noted Project 21 member Marie Fischer. "State Representative Katrina Jackson, now a state senator, said she created this bill because there are laws on the books in Louisiana and many other states requiring any doctor performing any kind of surgery at an outpatient facility to have hospital admitting privileges. This even stands for something as simple as removing a mole or a wart. Why should abortion be any different? Why should a procedure as invasive as abortion be treated differently?
"And reporting abortion statistics isn't required. So in the end, we have no idea what the true numbers are of women who have died from abortions, not to mention the unborn children and women who have been injured to the point of sterility," continued Fischer. "I would like to see the day when abortion is held up to the same scrutiny as all other surgical procedures. This reveals a true war on women. And since more black children are victims of abortion, it also shows only certain black lives matter."
