On March 4, 2020, the United States Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in the case of June Medical Services v. Gee. The case deals with an abortion provider’s challenge to a Louisiana law that was passed to protect the health and safety of women who suffer complications during abortions. The Thomas More Society, a Chicago and Omaha-headquartered not-for-profit, national public interest law firm participated in the case in support of the right of Louisiana and its Department of Health and Hospitals to require abortionists to have active admitting privileges at a local hospital.

The constitutionality of Louisiana’s law was upheld in September 2018 by a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In February 2019, the Supreme Court granted a temporary stay in the case, blocking the law from taking effect, and announced that it would hear the case.

Andrew Bath, Thomas More Society Executive Vice President and General Counsel said: “We are closely watching this case and consider it extremely relevant to the future of our nation."

Bath continued: "Here in Illinois, supporters of extreme abortion policy have stripped away almost all protections for pregnant women and their preborn children. Illinois has the most radical abortion laws in the United States, heinously permitting abortion up to and including the moment of birth."

Former United States Solicitor General, Judge Kenneth Starr, filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief on behalf of the Thomas More Society in support of the State of Louisiana.

“Thomas More Society attorneys also filed a brief on behalf of our client, Illinois Right to Life, in this very significant case because, for the first time in decades, it's at least conceivable that there are five votes on the court to overrule Roe v. Wade.”

The Louisiana case will be the first abortion case to come before the Supreme Court since conservative Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch joined the bench.

Starr’s argument challenges the standing of the abortionists known as June Medical Services L.L.C. to sue on behalf of their patients to advance a claim that the law’s requirement that abortionists have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals places an “undue burden” on their patients’ right to an abortion.

Acting in Special Counsel capacity for the Thomas More Society, Starr explains: “The injury at issue is the alleged undue burden on access to abortions, the right to which is held by third parties: June Medical’s patients. Petitioners lack third party standing to assert the constitutional rights of others in this case because they lack a close relationship with the patients who would have first party standing. In fact, June Medical has a conflict of interest with its patients, whom the restrictions were enacted to protect, with respect to the safety measures at issue.”

The amicus curiae brief filed by the Thomas More Society on behalf of Illinois Right to Life labels Roe v. Wade “obsolete” and out of step with modern science, noting that Roe’s “viability” standard was based on a lack of scientific consensus about when human life begins. The brief points out that modern understanding of viability, fertilization, and fetal development renders the 1973 ruling archaic and unsupported by scientific fact.

Read Kenneth Starr’s Brief of Amici Curiae Thomas More Society Supporting Respondent-Cross-Petitioner, filed December 27, 2019, with the United States Supreme Court in June Medical Services L.L.C., et al. v. Rebekah Gee, Secretary, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, here.

Read the Thomas More Society’s filing on behalf of Illinois Right to Life, Brief of Amicus Curiae Illinois Right to Life Supporting Respondent-Cross-Petitioner, filed January 8, 2020, with the United States Supreme Court in June Medical Services L.L.C., et al. v. Rebekah Gee, Secretary, Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, here.