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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court challenge to a Texas law that has dramatically reduced the number of abortion clinics in the state is the justices' most significant case on the hot-button issue in nearly a quarter-century.
One of this election-year term's biggest cases is being argued Wednesday before a court altered by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He was perhaps the most vociferous abortion opponent among the nine justices.
The Texas law has been replicated across the South and elsewhere, part of a wave of state abortion restrictions in the past five years.
States mainly led by Republicans have tried to limit when in a pregnancy abortions may be performed, restricted abortion-inducing drugs that take the place of surgery and increased standards for clinics and the doctors who work in them.
The Supreme Court case involves that last category. A Texas law enacted in 2013 requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. It also prohibits clinics from providing abortions unless they meet the standards of outpatient or ambulatory surgical centers.
The high court has partially blocked those measures. If allowed to take full effect, all but 10 clinics in Texas would have to close. There would be no abortion providers in the state's rural areas or west of San Antonio. The only clinic in the Rio Grande Valley would be allowed to remain open on a limited basis. Before the law was passed, there were roughly 40 clinics in the state. About half have closed.
The case offers competing views of how to protect women's health. The clinics contend abortions are safer than many other medical procedures that are less stringently regulated and that the clinic regulations have only one purpose: to reduce the availability of abortions.
"These laws are tantamount to an outright ban for too many," said Amy Hagstrom Miller, chief executive of Whole Woman's Health, which operates clinics in Texas and other states.
Defenders of the laws in Texas and elsewhere argue that states have discretion to take steps to make abortions safer. Alabama and other states backing Texas told the Supreme Court that states were within their rights to apply health regulations to clinics for the sake of patients.
"Obviously I'm pro-life and I would like to limit the number of abortions, but here we were looking at women's health and safety," said Republican Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama, a doctor who signed his state's admitting privileges law.
Texas Solicitor General Scott Keller, who will defend the law at the Supreme Court, said Texas acted in response to the high-profile case of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. He is serving a life sentence after his conviction for killing three babies born alive and for the overdose death of a woman who was a clinic patient.
A federal judge in Texas struck down parts of the law as not intended to promote women's health and clearly aimed at reducing access to abortion. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans largely accepted the state's argument.
The justices' June 2015 order putting the appellate ruling on hold at least suggests that there is a majority to cut back on the regulations. The clinics and abortion-rights groups are hoping for a ruling that might bolster challenges to other restrictions on abortion.
To prevail, they still need Justice Anthony Kennedy's vote, along with the reasonably certain votes of four more liberal justices, just as they did before Scalia's death. Kennedy was part of the 5-4 majority to reaffirm abortion rights in 1992, then wrote the court's decision in 2007 that upheld a federal law banning a certain procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. That was also a 5-4 split.
A broad high court ruling striking down the Texas provisions would show that the court's 1992 decision still "has some teeth in it," said Stephanie Toti, the lawyer who will argue the clinics' case.
Without Scalia, the best that supporters of these laws can hope for is a 4-4 tie, which would uphold the appeals court's endorsement of the Texas law and perhaps affect similar laws in Louisiana and Mississippi because they are part of the same judicial circuit as Texas.
A trial judge also struck down Louisiana's admitting privileges law, but the 5th Circuit has allowed Louisiana to enforce the law as the case makes its way through the courts.
Two of the state's four clinics have closed in response and a third will have to close soon, said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. On Friday, the clinics said in an emergency appeal to the high court that only a New Orleans clinic would remain open if the state is allowed to enforce the law. They want the justices to block the ruling and let them stay open.
A split decision in the Texas case would have no effect on laws that have been blocked in Alabama and Oklahoma, among other states.
Women already make the drive from Louisiana and Mississippi to have abortions at the West Alabama Women's Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said Dr. Willie Parker, who performs abortions in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. The Tuscaloosa clinic is Alabama's busiest. It would be among four clinics, out of five, that would have to close under the Alabama admitting privileges law, which is not in effect.
If the Texas law stands and others like it are enforced, Parker said, "it won't mean fewer unintended pregnancies. It won't mean fewer fatally flawed pregnancies. It will mean women will be left without a safe and legal means of ending pregnancy."
Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow with the anti-abortion group The Catholic Association, said the fight to limit abortions will continue no matter what the Supreme Court says. "This fight is not going away anytime soon," McGuire said.
The case is Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, 15-274.
List of winners at Sunday's 88th annual Academy Awards presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Best Picture: "Spotlight."
Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Revenant."
Actress: Brie Larson, "Room."
Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance, "Bridge of Spies."
Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander, "The Danish Girl."
Directing: Alejandro G. Inarritu, "The Revenant."
Foreign Language Film: "Son of Saul."
Adapted Screenplay: "The Big Short."
Original Screenplay: "Spotlight."
Animated Feature Film: "Inside Out."
Production Design: "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Cinematography: "The Revenant."
Sound Mixing: "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Sound Editing: "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Original Score: "The Hateful Eight."
Original Song: "Writing's on the Wall" from "Spectre."
Costume Design: "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Documentary Feature: "Amy."
Documentary (short subject): "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness."
Film Editing: "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Makeup and Hairstyling: "Mad Max: Fury Road."
Animated Short Film: "Bear Story."
Live Action Short Film: "Stutterer."
Visual Effects: "Ex Machina."
ANAHEIM, California (AP) — Five Ku Klux Klan members who were arrested following a vicious brawl in Anaheim were released because evidence shows they acted in self-defense, police said Sunday.
Seven people who remained in custody were seen beating, stomping and attacking the Klansmen with wooden posts, Sgt. Daron Wyatt said.
A police statement said the clash, which erupted after six Klan members arrived at a park Saturday for a planned anti-immigration rally, was started by a larger group of 10 to 20 counter-protesters who had "the intent of perpetrating violence."
Police said the Klansmen stabbed three counter-protesters with knives and the decorative end of a flag pole.
"Regardless of an individual or groups' beliefs or ideologies, they are entitled to live without the fear of physical violence and have the right, under the law, to defend themselves when attacked," the statement said.
Mayhem ensued Saturday as soon as the Klan members pulled up in a black SUV for an anti-immigration rally they had advertised in advance and pulled out signs saying "White Lives Matter."
Dozens of protesters swarmed in and someone smashed a window. The SUV then sped away, leaving three Klansmen dressed in black shirts decorated with the Klan cross and Confederate flag patches outnumbered.
"(The counter-protesters) were so angry, they would have torn these folks limb from limb," said Brian Levin, who directs the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. "I was afraid for their lives."
Levin, who went to Pearson Park expecting to record the rally for research, found himself protecting the Klansmen until police could intervene. On a video Levin shot and posted to Twitter, he later asked one of them, "How do you feel that a Jewish person helped save your life today?"
"I thank you. I thank you," said the Klansman, waving away the question with his blood-spattered arm. "I would have saved a colored man's life," he added.
Much of the clash was captured on video and posted online. In one, a man cries "I got stabbed," lifting his T-shirt to show a wound to his stomach. A fire hydrant where the man briefly sat was covered in blood.
The Klansmen were initially booked for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, and seven of the approximately 30 counter-protesters were arrested on suspicion of assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury
Like many other cities across the United States, Anaheim has a history intertwined with the KKK. What sets the city apart, however, is its decisive backlash after the Klan gained four of five City Council seats in 1924. Those Klansmen were ousted in a recall election after their affiliations with the Klan became public and following a nighttime KKK initiation rally that attracted an estimated 10,000 people to the city park where Saturday's violence erupted.
"The only reason we remember Anaheim for the Klan is because they fought the Klan so hard," said Phil Brigandi, an Orange County historian and author. "The more the Klan came out of the shadows, the more people became aware of it and the opposition grew."
In the near century since then, Anaheim has gone from 95 percent white to become 53 percent Hispanic and 27 percent white, according to data with the U.S. Census Bureau.
"We're a far cry from those terrible times and the Klan is really an anachronism," Levin said. "Anaheim is now a diverse community that is in many ways an amusement and sports capital of California. This is just an example of how a small group of people can tarnish the name of a community."
Rosa Madrigal, who was at the park Sunday with her husband and three children, said she was shocked to even hear about the KKK holding a rally in Anaheim, let alone the violence that ensued.
"I didn't even think it was true when I heard it," said Madrigal, 25. "It's crazy, especially in a park where you take your kids."
When the melee started, Levin said he saw no uniformed officers.
Wyatt said police were there and engaged with people at one end of the fight, and called for additional resources to deploy to the other end. The event stretched along an entire city block, he said.
Police Chief Raul Quezada said his officers were able to respond quickly enough to arrest all but one of the main participants, a counter-protester who remains at-large.
The Klan members were booked for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon before being released. The seven people who remained in custody were booked for assault with a deadly weapon or elder abuse for stomping on a Klan member who's older than 65 years old, Wyatt said.
Though the Klan members were released, prosecutors will review the case and decide whether to file criminal charges, he said.
Chris Barker, who identified himself as the imperial wizard of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, told The Associated Press by phone from North Carolina that his members were holding a peaceful anti-immigration demonstration and acted in self-defense.
"If we're attacked, we will attack back," said Barker, whose organization lists Pelham, N.C., as its headquarters. Last year, the group drew headlines when it protested the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol.
Nationwide, the number of active KKK groups increased to 190 in 2015 after falling in 2013 and 2014, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
In January 2015, packets containing fliers from the "Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" and condemning the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were left in the driveways of about 40 homes in Santa Ana, about 8 miles south of Anaheim.