“How shabby are these abortion clinics that they cannot meet the minimum standards other outpatient surgical centers are required to meet, and just how bad are these abortionists that they can’t get admitting privileges at a local hospital?” asked the president of National Right to Life, Carol Tobias. The Kermit Gosnell case showed “that the lucrative abortion industry is not able or willing to police itself and allows filthy, deplorable conditions to go unchecked.”

At first after Roe v. Wade, the court “exhibited extreme hostility to regulation of abortion as a medical procedure,” she continued, but in its 1992 Casey decision began to allow states to limit abortion. With today’s decision, the justices “reversed course and decided that they know better than representatives duly elected by the people of the United States.”

The Bishops, Notre Dame, ADF, Russell Moore and Texas Right to Life

The American Catholic bishops agreed. “The Court has rejected a common-sense law protecting women from abortion facilities that put profits above patient safety,” they said through Deirdre McQuade of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. Texas’s law only required standard care, like “basic sanitary conditions” and hallways wide enough that EMTs could get through with stretchers if they had to. The court’s ruling “contradicts the consensus among medical groups that such measures protect women’s lives.”

Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture noted that the court made itself “the country’s ex officio medical board.” The court

has stripped from states the authority to extend additional protections to women such as clinic safety standards or admitting privilege requirements for abortionists. This is a breathtaking arrogation of power, without warrant in the text, history, or tradition of the U.S. Constitution. It is a devastating blow to the rule of law, to self-governance, to the authority of states to regulate the practice of medicine in the name of health and safety, and worst of all, to the inalienable dignity of unborn children and their mothers.

In an official statement, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior Counsel Steven H. Aden declared that “Abortionists shouldn’t be given a free pass to elude medical requirements that everyone else is required to follow. … The law’s requirements were commonsense protections that ensured the maximum amount of protection for women, who deserve to have their well-being treated by government as a higher priority than the bottom line of abortionists. Any abortion facilities that don’t meet basic health and safety standards are not facilities that anyone should want to remain open.”

The court “handed down a sad and pathetic ruling,” said Russell Moore, the head of the Southern Baptist’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission in a video statement. The ruling “leaves the abortion industry unregulated in a kind of wild-west, laissez faire situation that we allow in the state of Texas that we wouldn’t allow for any other industry.” He called Christians to stand up “for our vulnerable unborn children and their vulnerable mothers.”

“Abortion zealots” couldn’t overturn the law in Texas and turned to the courts to do so, said Texas Right to Life legislative director John Seago in his official statement. “The only party which will benefit from today’s majority decision is the abortion industry, which exploits every means available to leech profit from abortion clients.”  He looked forward to the Texas legislature’s next session, “where we plan to continue the trend of blazing the state-by-state path toward the ultimate triumph of Life of our nation.”

The Candidates

Among former presidential candidates, Ted Cruz wrote on his Facebook page that “Texas enacted HB 2’s commonsense health standards to ensure that women receive safe care. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court sided with abortion extremists who care more about providing abortion-on-demand than they do protecting women’s health.”

Marco Rubio said he was “incredibly disappointed that the Supreme Court has struck down what I believe is an appropriate response to make sure that women and unborn children aren’t ever again subjected to the atrocities that took place in Kermit Gosnell’s facilities.”

As of this writing, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has not responded to the Court’s decision. The Federalist‘s Mollie Hemingway tweeted, “‘But what about SCOTUS’ is best argument pro-Trump people have so today’s failure to respond has got to hurt them.”