November, 13 2015, 03:00pm EDT

US Supreme Court to Review Texas Clinic Shutdown Law
Deceptive law would close all but 10 clinics in Texas and restrict access to safe, legal care for millions of women
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to review a Texas law designed to shut down clinics that provide safe, legal abortion services under the guise of improving women's health. The case seeks to overturn a June 2015 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that would have led to the closure of all but 10 clinics in Texas if the Supreme Court had not immediately intervened to keep those clinics open. The Court also today agreed to review Mississippi's arbitrary and medically unwarranted law specifically designed to shutter the last abortion clinic in the state. Oral arguments are expected to be scheduled for both cases in 2016.
The case, Whole Woman's Health v. Cole, was brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of a coalition of women's health providers seeking to permanently block provisions of a 2013 omnibus anti-abortion law known as HB2 that singles out abortion providers for medically unnecessary regulations. The law has been denounced by leading national medical experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights:
"Today the Supreme Court took an important step toward restoring the constitutional rights of millions of women, which Texas politicians have spent years dismantling through deceptive laws and regulatory red tape.
"For more than four decades, the Supreme Court has agreed that the U.S. Constitution protects every woman's right to make her own decisions about her health and family. Now the court must reject the schemes of politicians who believe the Constitution and the court's precedents do not apply to them.
"Playing politics with women's health isn't just wrong. It's dangerous for many women who will have no safe and legal options left where they live, and may be forced to take matters into their own hands.
"We are confident the court will recognize that these laws are a sham and stop these political attacks on women's rights, dignity, and access to safe, legal essential health care."
The case challenges two provisions of HB2 that, taken together, would have a devastating impact on women's health in Texas. The first provision requires that all abortion providers obtain local hospital admitting privileges, a mandate which has already forced the closure of over half the clinics in the state. The second provision requires every reproductive health care facility offering abortion services to meet the same hospital-like building standards as an ambulatory surgical center (ASC), which can amount to millions of dollars in medically unnecessary facility updates.
Said Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman's Health:
"Today, my heart is filled with hope. Although this is the first step in a much longer process, I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will uphold the rights that have been in place for four decades and reaffirm that every woman should be able to make her own decision about continuing or ending a pregnancy. I have hope for my staff members, who, for years, have poured themselves into providing Texas women with high-quality and comprehensive reproductive health care. And most of all, I have hope for the families and communities all across Texas who now may be able to get the safe and comprehensive care they need from a clinic they trust."
Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court has continually maintained women have a constitutional right to decide whether to end or continue a pregnancy-- a right that is central to personal dignity, autonomy, and the liberty protected by the 14th Amendment.
Further, the Court's 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed a woman's constitutional right to abortion and held that states could not enact medically unnecessary regulations meant to create substantial obstacles for a woman seeking to end a pregnancy. Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, and Souter made clear that "these matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the 14th Amendment."
Clinic shutdown laws have swept the South in recent years, threatening to further devastate abortion access in a region already facing limited availability of reproductive health care services. The last abortion clinic in Mississippi is awaiting a decision on whether the U.S. Supreme Court will review its state's clinic shutdown while health care providers in Louisiana are awaiting a federal court ruling which could shutter all but one clinic in the state. Courts have blocked similar measures in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Wisconsin and Kansas.
Case History: Whole Woman's Health v. Cole (formerly Whole Woman's Health v. Lakey)
Following a lawsuit brought by the Center for Reproductive rights on behalf of Whole Woman's Health and several other Texas health care providers in April 2014, a federal district court blocked two of the most harmful restriction of Texas' House Bill 2 (HB2) in late August 2014: the ambulatory surgical center requirement and the admitting-privileges requirement.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit stayed that decision in large part on October 2, 2014, allowing the requirements to immediately take effect. Because forcing hospital-style surgery center building and staffing requirements on every clinic would amount to a multi-million dollar tax on abortion services, all but 7 reproductive health care facilities in the state were prevented from offering safe and legal abortion services for 12 days. On October 14, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the injunction in large part, allowing many of the previously closed clinics to reopen their doors while the state's appeal moved forward.
On June 9, 2015, the Fifth Circuit's final decision in the appeal once again upheld the state restrictions in substantial part, this time threatening to shutter all but 10 abortion providers in the state - one of which would be subject to severe restrictions that would drastically limit its ability to provide abortion care. Once again, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to block the Fifth Circuit's decision and allow the clinics to remain open while the legal challenge continued.
The clinics and physicians in this challenge are represented by Stephanie Toti, David Brown, Janet Crepps, and Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights, J. Alexander Lawrence of the law firm Morrison & Foerster, and Austin attorneys Jan Soifer and Patrick O'Connell of the law firm O'Connell & Soifer.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is a global human rights organization of lawyers and advocates who ensure reproductive rights are protected in law as fundamental human rights for the dignity, equality, health, and well-being of every person.
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US- and Israel-Backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Must Be Shut Down, Say 165+ Charities
Distribution points run by the group, warns the NGO coalition, "have become sites of repeated massacres in blatant disregard for international humanitarian law."
Jul 01, 2025
More than 165 nongovernmental organizations on Tuesday issued a joint call to shut down the "deadly Israeli distribution scheme" for humanitarian assistance in the Gaza Strip, return to relief efforts coordinated by the United Nations, and end Israel's blockade on aid and commercial supplies into the destroyed Palestinian enclave.
The U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operations in late May, over widespread objections. As the joint statement explains, "The 400 aid distribution points operating during the temporary cease-fire across Gaza have now been replaced by just four military-controlled distribution sites, forcing 2 million people into overcrowded, militarized zones where they face daily gunfire and mass casualties while trying to access food and are denied other lifesaving supplies."
"Starved and weakened civilians are being forced to trek for hours through dangerous terrain and active conflict zones, only to face a violent, chaotic race to reach fenced, militarized distribution sites."
"The weeks following the launch of the Israeli distribution scheme have been some of the deadliest and most violent since October 2023," the statement notes. The Gaza Health Ministry says Israel's nearly 21-month assault has killed at least 56,647 Palestinians—and, as of Sunday, at least 583 of those deaths occurred while people sought food at GHF sites.
Another 4,186 Palestinians have been injured at the aid sites, according to the ministry. Overall, at least 134,105 have been wounded by the Israel Defense Forces' campaign since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. Some IDF troops toldHaaretz last week that commanders ordered them to shoot and shell aid-seeking Palestinians, even when they posed no threat.
"For 20 months, more than 2 million people have been subjected to relentless bombardment, the weaponization of food, water, and other aid, repeated forced displacement, and systematic dehumanization—all under the watch of the international community," the NGOs detailed. "The Sphere Association, which sets minimum standards for quality humanitarian aid, has warned that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's approach does not adhere to core humanitarian standards and principles."
"Under the Israeli government's new scheme, starved and weakened civilians are being forced to trek for hours through dangerous terrain and active conflict zones, only to face a violent, chaotic race to reach fenced, militarized distribution sites with a single entry point," the groups wrote. "There, thousands are released into chaotic enclosures to fight for limited food supplies."
"These areas have become sites of repeated massacres in blatant disregard for international humanitarian law," the coalition continued. "Orphaned children and caregivers are among the dead, with children harmed in over half of the attacks on civilians at these sites. With Gaza's healthcare system in ruins, many of those shot are left to bleed out alone, beyond the reach of ambulances and denied lifesaving medical care."
Today, over 130 NGOs have called for the restoration of unified, UN-led aid coordination and distribution in #Gaza based on international humanitarian law, inclusive of UNRWA.👉 www.oxfam.org/en/press-rel...@oxfaminternational.bsky.social @nrc-global.bsky.social @savechildrenintl.bsky.social
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— UNRWA (@unrwa.org) July 1, 2025 at 7:53 AM
The NGOs asserted that "the humanitarian system is being deliberately and systematically dismantled by the government of Israel's blockade and restrictions, a blockade now being used to justify shutting down nearly all other aid operations in favor of a deadly, military-controlled alternative that neither protects civilians nor meets basic needs."
The organizations also stressed that "experienced humanitarian actors remain ready to deliver lifesaving assistance at scale."
In addition to calling on other countries to "uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law," and to "reject the false choice between deadly, military-controlled food distributions and total denial of aid," the groups reiterated their demands for "an immediate and sustained cease-fire, the release of all hostages and arbitrarily detained prisoners, full humanitarian access at scale, and an end to the pervasive impunity that enables these atrocities and denies Palestinians their basic dignity."
Signatories include ActionAid, American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, B'Tselem, Greenpeace, Islamic Relief Worldwide, Jewish Network for Palestine, Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam International, PAX, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Save the Children, War Child Alliance, and War on Want.
Their statement follows a similar one released last week by a coalition of 15 leading human rights and legal organizations, which urged all parties involved in GHF, including countries, corporations, donors and individuals, "to immediately suspend any action or support that facilitates the forcible displacement of civilians, contributes to starvation or other grave breaches of international law, or undermines the core principles of international humanitarian law."
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Anti-Poverty Campaigners Cheer Spain-Brazil-South Africa Plan to Tax the Grotesquely Rich
"People are fed up with billionaires' greed eroding the environment and communities we depend on," said one supporter of the new initiative. "It's time for world leaders to listen and act."
Jul 01, 2025
A new plan backed by the governments of Spain, Brazil, and South Africa to tax the fortunes of the uber-rich drew hearty cheers from anti-poverty campaigners, environmental activists, and unions when it was announced on Tuesday.
As described in an announcement by the Spanish government, the initiative aims to create coordination between governments on the taxation of high-net-worth individuals to ensure they are not shuffling money abroad to avoid proper taxation.
"The proposal aims to incentivize and guide different countries to join the initiative and address policy, administrative, and data deficiencies, ensuring that high-net-worth individuals are taxed more efficiently in line with their wealth," the Spanish government explained. "To achieve this, it is necessary to foster international cooperation in multilateral forums to promote and facilitate the implementation of evidence-based reforms and ongoing experiences regarding the taxation of large fortunes in different countries."
The plan—crafted by the governments of Spain and Brazil and presented at the United Nations' Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development being held in the Spanish city of Seville—was quickly praised by an assortment of international nonprofit organizations as an essential tool for tackling global wealth inequality.
Kate Blagojevic, associate director for Europe campaigns for environmental the advocacy group 350.org, described it as "a bold move by Spain and Brazil" that she said could provide funding for clean energy investments around the world, including in countries that lack the resources to make such investments.
"We want more countries to join this coalition so that billionaires and multi-millionaires help to foot the bill for the climate damage they have caused and decrease the huge gap between the rich and the poorest," she said, while also calling for the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to sign on.
Susana Ruiz, the tax justice policy lead at the anti-poverty organization Oxfam, emphasized that international coordination on taxation of high-worth individuals was a serious proposal to address a crisis in global democracy, which she said was being undermined by the corrupting influence of vast sums of money being held by a tiny number of people.
"This extreme inequality is being driven by a financial system that puts the interests of a wealthy few above everyone else," she said. "This concentration of wealth is blocking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and keeping over three billion people living in poverty: over half of poor countries are spending more on debt repayments than on healthcare or education."
Fred Njehu, the global political lead for Greenpeace’s Fair Share campaign, deemed the tax plan essential at a time when nations are behind their renewable energy goals and when wealthy elites such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos can go all-out for a lavish three-day wedding in Venice.
"Financing is urgently needed for climate action and public services, not for polluting space travel and luxury weddings," he said. "This new coalition of governments working to tax the super-rich adds to the growing global momentum to make the world’s wealthiest pay their fair share. People are fed up with billionaires' greed eroding the environment and communities we depend on. It's time for world leaders to listen and act."
And Leo Hyde, the campaigns and media coordinator at the Public Services International union, praised the plan and said that was the result of years' worth of advocacy by unions and other organizations.
"The initiative aims to ensure a progressive and efficient global tax system with the aim of reducing social inequality," he said. "This builds directly on years of union-led tax justice campaigning that has already yielded significant victories, including the OECD global minimum corporate tax, Australia's public country-by-country reporting initiatives, and the ongoing UN tax treaty negotiations."
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'All Are Now Vulnerable': Legal Scholars Alarmed as DOJ Begins Push to Denaturalize Citizens
"Anyone could be prioritized," a spokesperson for the ACLU told Common Dreams. "It's really chilling."
Jul 01, 2025
As the Trump administration has begun the push to strip citizenship from foreign-born Americans, legal scholars and advocates are calling it a dangerous step toward using citizenship as a political weapon.
On June 11, the U.S. Department of Justice issued an internal memo written by Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate calling on DOJ attorneys to pursue "civil denaturalization" of foreign-born U.S. citizens.
"The Civil Division shall prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence," the memo said, adding that it should be among the division's top five priorities.
It suggested a wide variety of citizens who could be targeted for denaturalization. This includes perpetrators of violent offenses like "torture, war crimes, or other human rights violations." But it also targets much broader groups of people such as those "who pose a potential danger to national security" or those who "acquired naturalization through government corruption, fraud, or material misrepresentations."
It also calls for "any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue."
Naureen Shah, director of government affairs for the ACLU's Equality Division, told Common Dreams that "it's another devastating attack by the Trump administration on people who they want to cast as not belonging here."
The memo's vague language has Shah and other legal scholars warning that denaturalization could become a tool to deport political opponents, an effort that would be harder for courts to stop following Friday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which hamstrung the ability of lower courts to stop illegal actions by the Trump administration using injunctions.
Joyce Vance, a former United States Attorney, who is now a law professor and a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC, warned Tuesday about the possible implications on her blog Civil Discourse:
"It could be exercising First Amendment rights or encouraging diversity in hiring, now recast as fraud against the United States. Troublesome journalists who are naturalized citizens? Students? University professors? Infectious disease doctors who try to reveal the truth about epidemics? Lawyers?" Vance wrote. "All are now vulnerable to the vagaries of an administration that has shown a preference for deporting people without due process and dealing with questions that come up after the fact and with a dismissive tone."
"Anyone could be prioritized," Shah said. "It's really chilling."
Cassandra Robertson, a law professor at Case Western University, told NPR that it was "especially concerning" that the administration would plan to pursue denaturalization through civil court.
"Civil denaturalization cases provide no right to an attorney, meaning defendants without resources often face the government without representation," she wrote in a 2019 study on the history of denaturalization along with her colleague Irina Manta. "There are no jury trials, with judges making citizenship determinations alone. The burden of proof is 'clear and convincing evidence' rather than the criminal standard of 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' Additionally, there is no statute of limitations, allowing the government to build cases on decades-old evidence that may be incomplete or unreliable."
Robertson said Trump's approach mirrors that undertaken during the McCarthy era, when those deemed "un-American" were stripped of citizenship due to their political views.
"At the height of denaturalization, there were about 22,000 cases a year of denaturalization filed, and this was on a smaller population. It was huge," she said.
The Supreme Court stepped in to reel back denaturalization in 1967, determining that, in Robertson's words, it was "inconsistent with the American form of democracy, because it creates two levels of citizenship." After that, the number of denaturalization cases plummeted to the single digits each year. The Trump administration seems to be hoping to reverse that trend.
Republican politicians have not been shy about calling for their political opponents to be stripped of citizenship. Last week, following Zohran Mamdani's shocking victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) called for the Ugandan-born state assemblyman to be stripped of his U.S. citizenship and "deported," referring to him as an "antisemitic, socialist, communist."
Ogles accused Mamdani of failing to disclose his political "affiliations or sympathies" during the process that led him to become a citizen in 2018. He singled out Mamdani's support for the Holy Land Foundation, whose leaders were convicted in a widely criticized "terrorism financing" case in 2008. Notably, the leaders of the group were never accused of directly funding terrorist groups or terrorist acts.
On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Ogles' call to deport Mamdani, and she did not shoot down the idea.
"I have not seen those claims, but surely if they are true, it's something that should be investigated," Leavitt said.
It was not the first time Republicans have called to deport leaders in the other party explicitly for their political views.
In June, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier called for the Trump administration to "deport and denaturalize" Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia, after she criticized President Donald Trump's deployment of the military to quash protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles.
The Trump administration has already targeted lawful immigrants with deportation purely for their political views. In March, the administration abducted and attempted to deport pro-Palestine student activist Mahmoud Khalil, explicitly because he was a "threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States," similar language to what the DOJ now says is justification for denaturalization. The administration has also attempted to deport others, like Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk, for as little as co-writing an op-ed calling on her university to divest from Israel.
"The way the memo is written, there is no guarantee DOJ will pursue cases against violent criminals," Vance said. "They could just do easy cases to ratchet up numbers, like we're seeing with deportation. Or they could target people who, they view as troublemakers."
There are more than 25 million people in the United States who are naturalized citizens.
"They should not have to live in fear that they'll lose their rights," Shah said.
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