Chief Justice Roberts joins majority in striking down Louisiana's restrictive abortion law

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts joined a 5-4 majority to strike down a Louisiana abortion law, passed in 2014 but never enforced, that would have left just one abortion provider for the state. The law would have required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of their clinics, which would have resulted in just one provider in one clinic left in the state.

This was an identical case to one decided by the court in 2016, in which the same law—that time in Texas—was struck down, and it was on that precedent that Roberts ruled with the majority. “The result in this case is controlled by our decision four years ago invalidating a nearly identical Texas law,” Roberts wrote. Roberts did not join in the majority opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer. In an obnoxious dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “Today a majority of the Court perpetuates its ill-founded abortion jurisprudence by enjoining a perfectly legitimate state law and doing so without jurisdiction.”