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The 13 Most Badass Quotes

From the Supreme Court's
Female Justices on the Texas
Abortion Case

So much girl power on that bench.

by PRACHI GUPTA MAR 3, 2016

GETTY IMAGES "

On Wednesday, eight Supreme Court

justices began hearing oral arguments in
Whole Women's Health v. Hellerstedt, the most
important case on abortion access to be heard
in two decades. The case challenges the
constitutionality of a 2013 Texas law that
requires physicians at abortion clinics to have
admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and
forces clinics to meet standards of ambulatory
surgical centers (ASCs), which are costly to
implement. If the law is upheld, only 10
clinics will remain in a state of 27 million
people, forcing women to travel
long distances in order to receive a
vital service. Because this law is one
of several anti-abortion restrictions states
have passed since 2010, the court's decision is
likely to have a large impact on
states' abortion laws across the nation.

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Petitioners of the law, represented on

Wednesday by attorney Stephanie Toti, argue
that it violates the ruling of 1992's Planned
Parenthood v. Casey case, which determined
that laws cannot place on "undue burden" on
a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
The position is supported by the American
Medical Association, which says the
restrictions are not medically necessary, and
that the law actually harms women because
of the burden it places on them.

Scott Keller, solicitor general of Texas,

defended the law in court, arguing that the
law protects women, especially those
who suffer from procedure-related
complications.

With so much at stake for American women,

it was amazing to see the court's three female
justices spring into action for
reproductive rights. Justice Elena Kagan,
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Justice
Sonia Sotomayor were deYant, indignant, and
tough, cutting off male justices who wanted
to move on in the proceedings, and
mercilessly attacking Zaws in the Texas
law's logic. "It felt as if, for the Yrst time in
history, the gender playing Yeld at the high
court was Ynally leveled, and as a
consequence the court's female justices were
emboldened to just ignore the rules," wrote
Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, saying the
three women "are just not inclined to play
nice anymore."

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Here are their most badass moments,

according to the official transcript (which is a
total delight to read).

1. Justice Samuel Alito seemed unconvinced

that the passage of the prohibitive law and
the simultaneous closing of a dozen abortion
clinics was more than a coincidence. When he
asked Toti to provide evidence that the law
resulted in the shuttering of
clinics, Kagan brilliantly cut in:

Kagan: Ms. Toti, could I just make

sure I understand it, because you
said 11 were closed on the day
that the admitting privileges
requirement took effect, is that
correct? Toti: That's correct.
Kagan: And is it right that in
the two-week period that the ASC
requirement was in effect, that
over a dozen facilities shut their
doors, and then when that was
stayed, when that was lifted, they
reopened immediately; is that
right?
Toti: That is correct.
Kagan: It's almost like the perfect
controlled experiment as to the
effect of the law, isn't it? It's like
you put the law into effect, 12
clinics closed. You take the law out
of effect, they reopen.

2. Sotomayor is absolutely incredulous of the

hoops women have to climb through to get a
medically induced abortion (that is, take two
pills):

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Sotomayor: Can I walk through the

burden a moment? There's two
types of early abortion at play
here. The medical abortion, that
doesn't involve any hospital
procedure. A doctor prescribes two
pills, and the women take the pills
at home, correct?
Toti: Under Texas law, she must
take them at the facility, but that
is otherwise correct.
Sotomayor: I'm sorry. What? She
has to come back two separate
days to take them?
Toti: That's correct, yes.

3. At one point, Justice John Roberts tries to

move forward. Sotomayor isn't done, though.
She shoulders on and makes a very strong
point:

Sotomayor: Is there any other—

Roberts: Thank you, counsel.
Sotomayor: I'm sorry. Is there any
other medical condition by taking
the pills that are required to be
done in hospital, not as a prelude
to a procedure in hospital, but an
independent, you know — I know
there are cancer treatments by pills
now. How many of those are
required to be done in front of a
doctor?
Toti: None, Your Honor. There are
no other medication requirements
and no other outpatient procedures
that are required by law to be
performed in an ASC.
Roberts: Thank you, counsel.

4. When Keller says that women in El Paso,

Texas, can simply go to a clinic in New
Mexico, Ginsburg absolutely tears him apart.
By his logic, since New Mexico doesn't have
the same standards on abortion clinics, isn't
Texas endangering women by forcing them to
go there?:

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That's odd that you point to the

New Mexico facility. New Mexico
doesn't have any surgical ASC
requirement, and it doesn't have
any admitting requirement. So if
your argument is right, then New
Mexico is not an available way out
for Texas because Texas says to
protect our women, we need these
things. But send them off to Mexico
— New Mexico where they don't
get it either, no admitting
privileges, no ASC. And that's
perfectly all right. Well, if that's
all right for the women in the El
Paso area, why isn't it right for the
rest of the women in Texas?

5. Keller attempts to argue that there's a

medical need to the law's restrictions, but
Sotomayor isn't having it:

I'm talking about the question I

asked, which is, according to you,
the slightest health improvement is
enough to impose on hundreds of
thousands of women — even
assuming I accept your argument,
which I don't, necessarily, because
it's being challenged — but the
slightest benefit is enough to
burden the lives of a million
women.

6. Ginsburg challenges Keller on why a

woman needs to receive a medical abortion
— that is, take two pills — in an ambulatory
surgical center:

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Ginsburg: What is the benefit of

having a woman take those pills in
an ambulatory surgical center when
there is no surgery involved?
Keller: Well, there would be
surgery in a complication. And all
abortion clinics in Texas perform
surgical abortions, and that's why
Petitioners probably didn't defend
that aspect of the judgment.
Ginsburg: If it is a complication, it
is not going to occur on the spot. I
mean, you have to concede that in
in the case of the medical abortion,
the complication generally arises
after the woman is back at home.
And then the nearest hospital has
nothing to do with the surgical
center.

7. The Texas law reasons that, by requiring

clinics to meet standards of surgical centers,
the state is creating a medically safer
environment for women. By that logic, Kagan
asks, would it be reasonable to then ask
all abortion clinics in Texas to meet the
standards of Mass General? It is, after all, one
of the best hospitals around, and women
would probably get even better medical care
there:

I mean, if the legislature says we

have a health-related abortion
regulation here, we've looked
around the country and we think
that there are 10 great hospitals in
the country, you
know, Massachusetts General,
Brigham and Women's, and
we're going to make all our
abortion facilities conform to
the standards of those hospitals,
and that will, you know, that will
increase medical care. Now, it's
true we don't make anybody else
doing any kind other kind
of procedure conform to those
standards, but we think it will
increase health benefits if abortion
facilities conform to them. Would
that be all right? ... So every
abortion facility has to hit the
standards of MGH. That would be
all right?

8. Keller says that the Texas bill "was passed

in the wake" of the horriYc case of Kermit
Gosnell, the Pennsylvania-based abortion
provider convicted of murdering a live infant
during a late-term abortion procedure.
However, Kagan, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor
pounced on this immediately as
a misleading example, noting that state had
failed to inspect Gosnell's clinic for 15 years,
and that prior to 2013, Texas already had
inspection regulations to protect against
a Gosnell-like situation. Ginsburg then asks
about what legitimate threat, speciYcally, the
Texas law was responding to:

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But what is the legitimate interest

in protecting their health? What
evidence is there that under the
prior law, the prior law was not
sufficiently protective of the
women's health? As I understand
it, this is one of the lowest risk
procedures, and you give a
horrible [sic] from Pennsylvania,
but absolutely nothing from Texas.
As far as we know, this is among
the most safe, the least risk
procedures, an early stage
abortion. So what was the problem
that the legislature was responding
to that it needed to improve the
facilities for women's health?

9. Keller responds by saying that "Planned

Parenthood admitted that over 210 women
annually are hospitalized because of abortion
complications." Ginsberg scoffs at this
argument, noting that childbirth is way riskier
for a woman than an abortion:

Ginsburg: As compared to
childbirth, many, many — much
riskier procedure, is it not?
Keller: Well, the American Center
for Law and Justice and Former
Abortion Providers' amicus brief
dispute that. But regardless, there
is evidence—
Ginsburg: Is there really any
dispute that childbirth is a much
riskier procedure than an early-
stage abortion?

10. When pressed for a number, Keller

says that "fewer than 1 percent" of women see
complications due to abortions, to which
Sotomayor responds:

I don't mean to negate that one

should try to avoid injury to
anyone, and don't take my
question as that, but there are
people who die from complications
from aspirin. May be unusual, but
there's a certain percentage that
do that. Yet, we don't require that
people take aspirins in ASC centers
or in hospitals.

11. Sotomayor then pointedly likens doctors

burdened by the Texas law to indentured
slaves of the state:

There was testimony in the record

that at least four doctors had -
— from that spot had asked for
admitting privileges. Well, the Fifth
Circuit's remedy only provided for
one doctor, Dr. Lynn, who's past
retirement age, to be the only
doctor performing abortions in that
clinic. Now, if the clinic had — I
don't know how many it had, but it
had at least four people before —
it seems rather callous to say as a
remedy that we're going to make
that one doctor do the work of
four, or maybe more doctors who
didn't get admitting privileges.
Why is even the Fifth Circuit's
remedy reasonable? ... Why does
Dr. Lynn have to become an
indentured slave to ensure that
women in her area are provided
with their fundamental right to
choose?

12. And, as if there were any doubt on her

position, Sotomayor really does not hold back
about what she thinks:

You can't have a law that has

marginal, if any, medical benefit
be applied to this procedure
anywhere where there's an undue
burden on people, on women.

13. Ginsburg schools Keller on the concept of

"undue burden" — that, when looking at who
is most adversely affected by the Texas law,
one must consider the women who can no
longer access abortions, not focus on ones
who still can. Keller says the law is not about
regulating women, but about regulating
doctors and clinics. Then Ginsburg responds: