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\nClick above for full copy of decision<\/p>\n
We must here decide whether two provisions of Texas\u2019 House Bill 2 violate the Federal Constitution as inter-preted in Casey. The first provision, which we shall call the \u201cadmitting-privileges requirement,\u201d says that
\n\u201c[a] physician performing or inducing an abortion . . .must, on the date the abortion is performed or induced, have active admitting privileges at a hospital<\/p>\n
2 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nthat . . . is located not further than 30 miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced.\u201d Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. \u00a7171.0031(a) (West Cum. Supp. 2015).
\nThis provision amended Texas law that had previously required an abortion facility to maintain a written protocol \u201cfor managing medical emergencies and the transfer of patients requiring further emergency care to a hospital.\u201d 38 Tex. Reg. 6546 (2013).
\nThe second provision, which we shall call the \u201csurgicalcenter
\nrequirement,\u201d says that \u201cthe minimum standards for an abortion facility must be equivalent to the minimum standards adopted under [the Texas Health and Safety Code section] for ambulatory surgical centers.\u201d Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. \u00a7245.010(a).
\nWe conclude that neither of these provisions offers medical benefits sufficient to justify the burdens uponaccess that each imposes. Each places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion, each constitutes an undue burden on abortion access, Casey, supra, at 878 (plurality opinion), and each violatesthe Federal Constitution. Amdt. 14, \u00a71.
\nI
\nA
\nIn July 2013, the Texas Legislature enacted House Bill 2 (H. B. 2 or Act). In September (before the new law tookeffect), a group of Texas abortion providers filed an action in Federal District Court seeking facial invalidation of the law\u2019s admitting-privileges provision. In late October, the District Court granted the injunction. Planned Parenthood of Greater Tex. Surgical Health Servs. v. Abbott, 951 F. Supp. 2d 891, 901 (WD Tex. 2013). But three days later, the Fifth Circuit vacated the injunction,
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\nOpinion of the Court
\nthereby permitting the provision to take effect. Planned Parenthood of Greater Tex. Surgical Health Servs. v. Abbott, 734 F. 3d 406, 419 (2013).
\nThe Fifth Circuit subsequently upheld the provision, and set forth its reasons in an opinion released late thefollowing March. In that opinion, the Fifth Circuit pointed to evidence introduced in the District Court the previousOctober. It noted that Texas had offered evidence designed to show that the admitting-privileges requirement\u201cwill reduce the delay in treatment and decrease healthrisk for abortion patients with critical complications,\u201d and that it would \u201c\u2018screen out\u2019 untrained or incompetent abortion providers.\u201d Planned Parenthood of Greater Tex. Surgical Health Servs. v. Abbott, 748 F. 3d 583, 592 (2014) (Abbott). The opinion also explained that the plaintiffs had not provided sufficient evidence \u201cthat abortion practitioners will likely be unable to comply with the privilegesrequirement.\u201d Id., at 598. The court said that all \u201cof the major Texas cities, including Austin, Corpus Christi, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio,\u201d would \u201ccontinue to have multiple clinics where many physicians will have or obtain hospital admitting privileges.\u201d Ibid. The Abbott plaintiffs did not file a petition for certiorari in this Court.
\nB On April 6, one week after the Fifth Circuit\u2019s decision,petitioners, a group of abortion providers (many of whomwere plaintiffs in the previous lawsuit), filed the present lawsuit in Federal District Court. They sought an injunction preventing enforcement of the admitting-privileges provision as applied to physicians at two abortion facilities, one operated by Whole Woman\u2019s Health in McAllenand the other operated by Nova Health Systems in El Paso. They also sought an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the surgical-center provision anywhere in Texas.
\n4 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nThey claimed that the admitting-privileges provision and the surgical-center provision violated the Constitution\u2019s Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted in Casey.
\nThe District Court subsequently received stipulations from the parties and depositions from the parties\u2019 experts.The court conducted a 4-day bench trial. It heard, amongother testimony, the opinions from expert witnesses for both sides. On the basis of the stipulations, deposi- tions, and testimony, that court reached the followingconclusions:
\n1. Of Texas\u2019 population of more than 25 million people, \u201capproximately 5.4 million\u201d are \u201cwomen\u201d of \u201creproductiveage,\u201d living within a geographical area of \u201cnearly 280,000square miles.\u201d Whole Woman\u2019s Health v. Lakey, 46
\nF. Supp. 3d 673, 681 (2014); see App. 244.
\n2.
\n\u201cIn recent years, the number of abortions reported in Texas has stayed fairly consistent at approximately 15\u201316% of the reported pregnancy rate, for a total number of approximately 60,000\u201372,000 legal abortions performedannually.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 681; see App. 238.
\n3.
\nPrior to the enactment of H. B. 2, there were more than 40 licensed abortion facilities in Texas, which \u201cnumber dropped by almost half leading up to and in the wake of enforcement of the admitting-privileges requirement that went into effect in late-October 2013.\u201d 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 681; App. 228\u2013231.
\n4. If the surgical-center provision were allowed to takeeffect, the number of abortion facilities, after September 1,2014, would be reduced further, so that \u201conly seven fa- cilities and a potential eighth will exist in Texas.\u201d 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 680; App. 182\u2013183.
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\nOpinion of the Court
\n5.
\nAbortion facilities \u201cwill remain only in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and the Dallas\/Fort Worth metropolitan region.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 681; App. 229\u2013230. These include \u201cone facility in Austin, two in Dallas, one in FortWorth, two in Houston, and either one or two in San Antonio.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 680; App. 229\u2013230.
\n6.
\n\u201cBased on historical data pertaining to Texas\u2019s average number of abortions, and assuming perfectly equal distribution among the remaining seven or eight providers, this would result in each facility serving between 7,500 and 10,000 patients per year. Accounting for the seasonal variations in pregnancy rates and a slightlyunequal distribution of patients at each clinic, it is foreseeable that over 1,200 women per month could be vyingfor counseling, appointments, and follow-up visits at someof these facilities.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 682; cf. App. 238.
\n7.
\nThe suggestion \u201cthat these seven or eight providerscould meet the demand of the entire state stretches credulity.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 682; see App. 238.
\n8.
\n\u201cBetween November 1, 2012 and May 1, 2014,\u201d thatis, before and after enforcement of the admitting-privileges requirement, \u201cthe decrease in geographicaldistribution of abortion facilities\u201d has meant that the number of women of reproductive age living more than 50miles from a clinic has doubled (from 800,000 to over 1.6million); those living more than 100 miles has increased by 150% (from 400,000 to 1 million); those living morethan 150 miles has increased by more than 350% (from86,000 to 400,000); and those living more than 200 miles has increased by about 2,800% (from 10,000 to 290,000).After September 2014, should the surgical-center requirement go into effect, the number of women of reproductive age living significant distances from an abortion
\n6 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nprovider will increase as follows: 2 million women of reproductive age will live more than 50 miles from an abortion provider; 1.3 million will live more than 100 miles from an abortion provider; 900,000 will live more than 150 miles from an abortion provider; and 750,000 more than200 miles from an abortion provider. 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 681\u2013682; App. 238\u2013242.
\n9. The \u201ctwo requirements erect a particularly highbarrier for poor, rural, or disadvantaged women.\u201d 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 683; cf. App. 363\u2013370.
\n10.
\n\u201cThe great weight of evidence demonstrates that,before the act\u2019s passage, abortion in Texas was extremelysafe with particularly low rates of serious complications and virtually no deaths occurring on account of the procedure.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 684; see, e.g., App. 257\u2013259, 538; see also id., at 200\u2013202, 253\u2013257.
\n11.
\n\u201cAbortion, as regulated by the State before the enactment of House Bill 2, has been shown to be much safer, in terms of minor and serious complications, than manycommon medical procedures not subject to such intenseregulation and scrutiny.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 684; see, e.g.,App. 223\u2013224 (describing risks in colonoscopies), 254 (discussing risks in vasectomy and endometrial biopsy,among others), 275\u2013277 (discussing complication rate inplastic surgery).
\n12.
\n\u201cAdditionally, risks are not appreciably lowered for patients who undergo abortions at ambulatory surgicalcenters as compared to nonsurgical-center facilities.\u201d 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 684; App. 202\u2013206, 257\u2013259.
\n13. \u201c[W]omen will not obtain better care or experience more frequent positive outcomes at an ambulatory surgiCite
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\nOpinion of the Court
\ncal center as compared to a previously licensed facility.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 684; App. 202\u2013206.
\n14.
\n\u201c[T]here are 433 licensed ambulatory surgical centers in Texas,\u201d of which \u201c336 . . . are apparently either \u2018grandfathered\u2019 or enjo[y] the benefit of a waiver of some orall\u201d of the surgical-center \u201crequirements.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 680\u2013681; App. 184.
\n15.
\nThe \u201ccost of coming into compliance\u201d with thesurgical-center requirement \u201cfor existing clinics is significant,\u201d \u201cundisputedly approach[ing] 1 million dollars,\u201d and \u201cmost likely exceed[ing] 1.5 million dollars,\u201d with \u201c[s]ome . . . clinics\u201d unable to \u201ccomply due to physical size limitations of their sites.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 682. The \u201ccost of acquiring land and constructing a new compliant clinic will likely exceed three million dollars.\u201d Ibid.
\nOn the basis of these and other related findings, theDistrict Court determined that the surgical-center requirement \u201cimposes an undue burden on the right of women throughout Texas to seek a previability abortion,\u201dand that the \u201cadmitting-privileges requirement, . . . inconjunction with the ambulatory-surgical-center requirement, imposes an undue burden on the right of women in the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso, and West Texas to seek a previability abortion.\u201d Id., at 687. The District Court concluded that the \u201ctwo provisions\u201d would cause \u201ctheclosing of almost all abortion clinics in Texas that wereoperating legally in the fall of 2013,\u201d and thereby create a constitutionally \u201cimpermissible obstacle as applied to all women seeking a previability abortion\u201d by \u201crestrictingaccess to previously available legal facilities.\u201d Id., at 687\u2013
\n688. On August 29, 2014, the court enjoined the enforcement of the two provisions. Ibid.
\n8 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nC
\nOn October 2, 2014, at Texas\u2019 request, the Court of Appeals stayed the District Court\u2019s injunction. Whole Woman\u2019s Health v. Lakey, 769 F. 3d 285, 305. Within the next two weeks, this Court vacated the Court of Appeals\u2019 stay (in substantial part) thereby leaving in effect theDistrict Court\u2019s injunction against enforcement of the surgical-center provision and its injunction against enforcement of the admitting-privileges requirement asapplied to the McAllen and El Paso clinics. Whole Woman\u2019s Health v. Lakey, 574 U. S. ___ (2014). The Court of Appeals then heard Texas\u2019 appeal.
\nOn June 9, 2015, the Court of Appeals reversed theDistrict Court on the merits. With minor exceptions, itfound both provisions constitutional and allowed them to take effect. Whole Women\u2019s Health v. Cole, 790 F. 3d 563, 567 (per curiam), modified, 790 F. 3d 598 (CA5 2015).Because the Court of Appeals\u2019 decision rests upon alternative grounds and fact-related considerations, we set forthits basic reasoning in some detail. The Court of Appealsconcluded:
\n\u2022
\nThe District Court was wrong to hold the admitting-privileges requirement unconstitutional because (except for the clinics in McAllen and El Paso) the providers had not asked them to do so, and principles of res judicatabarred relief. Id., at 580\u2013583.
\n\u2022
\nBecause the providers could have brought their constitutional challenge to the surgical-center provision in their earlier lawsuit, principles of res judicata also barred thatclaim. Id., at 581\u2013583.
\n\u2022
\nIn any event, a state law \u201cregulating previability abortion is constitutional if: (1) it does not have the purpose oreffect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus; and (2) it is reasonably related to (or designed to further) a legitiCite
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\nOpinion of the Court
\nmate state interest.\u201d Id., at 572.
\n\u2022
\n\u201c[B]oth the admitting privileges requirement and\u201d the surgical-center requirement \u201cwere rationally related to alegitimate state interest,\u201d namely, \u201crais[ing] the standard and quality of care for women seeking abortions and . . . protect[ing] the health and welfare of women seeking abortions.\u201d Id., at 584.
\n\u2022
\nThe \u201c[p]laintiffs\u201d failed \u201cto proffer competent evidencecontradicting the legislature\u2019s statement of a legitimatepurpose.\u201d Id., at 585.
\n\u2022
\n\u201c[T]he district court erred by substituting its own judgment [as to the provisions\u2019 effects] for that of the legislature, albeit . . . in the name of the undue burden inquiry.\u201d Id., at 587.
\n\u2022
\nHolding the provisions unconstitutional on their face isimproper because the plaintiffs had failed to show that either of the provisions \u201cimposes an undue burden on alarge fraction of women.\u201d Id., at 590.
\n\u2022
\nThe District Court erred in finding that, if the surgical-center requirement takes effect, there will be too few abortion providers in Texas to meet the demand. That factual determination was based upon the finding of one of plaintiffs\u2019 expert witnesses (Dr. Grossman) that abortion providers in Texas \u201c\u2018will not be able to go from providing approximately 14,000 abortions annually, as they currently are, to providing the 60,000 to 70,000 abortions that are done each year in Texas once all\u2019\u201d of the clinics failing tomeet the surgical-center requirement \u201c\u2018are forced to close.\u2019\u201d Id., at 589\u2013590. But Dr. Grossman\u2019s opinion is (in the Court of Appeals\u2019 view) \u201c\u2018ipse dixit\u2019\u201d; the \u201c\u2018record lacks any actual evidence regarding the current or future capacity of the eight clinics\u2019\u201d; and there is no \u201cevidence in the record that\u201d the providers that currently meet the surgical-center requirement \u201care operating at full capacity or thatthey cannot increase capacity.\u201d Ibid.
\n10 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nFor these and related reasons, the Court of Appealsreversed the District Court\u2019s holding that the admitting-privileges requirement is unconstitutional and its holding that the surgical-center requirement is unconstitutional. The Court of Appeals upheld in part the District Court\u2019s more specific holding that the requirements are unconstitutional as applied to the McAllen facility and Dr. Lynn (adoctor at that facility), but it reversed the District Court\u2019sholding that the surgical-center requirement is unconstitutional as applied to the facility in El Paso. In respect tothis last claim, the Court of Appeals said that women in ElPaso wishing to have an abortion could use abortion providers in nearby New Mexico.
\nII Before turning to the constitutional question, we must consider the Court of Appeals\u2019 procedural grounds for holding that (but for the challenge to the provisions of
\nH. B. 2 as applied to McAllen and El Paso) petitioners were barred from bringing their constitutional challenges.
\nA
\nClaim Preclusion\u2014Admitting-Privileges Requirement
\nThe Court of Appeals held that there could be no facialchallenge to the admitting-privileges requirement. Because several of the petitioners here had previouslybrought an unsuccessful facial challenge to that requirement (namely, Abbott, 748 F. 3d, at 605; see supra, at 2\u2013 3), the Court of Appeals thought that \u201cthe principle of res judicata\u201d applied. 790 F. 3d, at 581. The Court of Appealsalso held that res judicata prevented the District Court from granting facial relief to petitioners, concluding that itwas improper to \u201cfacially invalidat[e] the admitting privileges requirement,\u201d because to do so would \u201cgran[t] more relief than anyone requested or briefed.\u201d Id., at 580. We hold that res judicata neither bars petitioners\u2019 challenges
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\nto the admitting-privileges requirement nor prevents usfrom awarding facial relief.
\nFor one thing, to the extent that the Court of Appealsconcluded that the principle of res judicata bars any facial challenge to the admitting-privileges requirement, see ibid., the court misconstrued petitioners\u2019 claims. Petitioners did not bring a facial challenge to the admitting-privileges requirement in this case but instead challenged that requirement as applied to the clinics in McAllen and El Paso. The question is whether res judicata bars petitioners\u2019 particular as-applied claims. On this point, the Court of Appeals concluded that res judicata was no bar,see 790 F. 3d, at 592, and we agree.
\nThe doctrine of claim preclusion (the here-relevantaspect of res judicata) prohibits \u201csuccessive litigation ofthe very same claim\u201d by the same parties. New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U. S. 742, 748 (2001). Petitioners\u2019 postenforcement as-applied challenge is not \u201cthe very same claim\u201d as their preenforcement facial challenge. The Restatement of Judgments notes that development of new material facts can mean that a new case and an otherwise similar previous case do not present the same claim. SeeRestatement (Second) of Judgments \u00a724, Comment f (1980) (\u201cMaterial operative facts occurring after the decision of an action with respect to the same subject matter may in themselves, or taken in conjunction with the antecedent facts, comprise a transaction which may be madethe basis of a second action not precluded by the first\u201d); cf. id., \u00a720(2) (\u201cA valid and final personal judgment for the defendant, which rests on the prematurity of the action or on the plaintiff \u2019s failure to satisfy a precondition to suit,does not bar another action by the plaintiff instituted after the claim has matured, or the precondition has been satisfied\u201d); id., \u00a720, Comment k (discussing relationship of this rule with \u00a724, Comment f ). The Courts of Appeals haveused similar rules to determine the contours of a new
\n12 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nclaim for purposes of preclusion. See, e.g., Morgan v. Covington, 648 F. 3d 172, 178 (CA3 2011) (\u201c[R]es judicata does not bar claims that are predicated on events that postdate the filing of the initial complaint\u201d); Ellis v. CCA of Tenn. LLC, 650 F. 3d 640, 652 (CA7 2011); Bank of
\nN. Y. v. First Millennium, Inc., 607 F. 3d 905, 919 (CA2 2010); Smith v. Potter, 513 F. 3d 781, 783 (CA7 2008); Rawe v. Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 462 F. 3d 521, 529 (CA6 2006); Manning v. Auburn, 953 F. 2d 1355, 1360 (CA11 1992). The Restatement adds that, where \u201cimportant human values\u2014such as the lawfulness of continuing personal disability or restraint\u2014are at stake, even a slight change of circumstances may afford a sufficientbasis for concluding that a second action may be brought.\u201d \u00a724, Comment f; see Bucklew v. Lombardi, 783 F. 3d 1120, 1127 (CA8 2015) (allowing as-applied challenge to exe- cution method to proceed notwithstanding prior facialchallenge).
\nWe find this approach persuasive. Imagine a group of prisoners who claim that they are being forced to drinkcontaminated water. These prisoners file suit against the facility where they are incarcerated. If at first their suit is dismissed because a court does not believe that the harm would be severe enough to be unconstitutional, it would make no sense to prevent the same prisoners from bringing a later suit if time and experience eventually showedthat prisoners were dying from contaminated water. Such circumstances would give rise to a new claim that the prisoners\u2019 treatment violates the Constitution. Factual developments may show that constitutional harm, whichseemed too remote or speculative to afford relief at the time of an earlier suit, was in fact indisputable. In our view, such changed circumstances will give rise to a new constitutional claim. This approach is sensible, and it isconsistent with our precedent. See Abie State Bank v. Bryan, 282 U. S. 765, 772 (1931) (where \u201csuit was brought
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\nOpinion of the Court
\nimmediately upon the enactment of the law,\u201d \u201cdecision sustaining the law cannot be regarded as precluding a subsequent suit for the purpose of testing [its] validity . . . in the lights of the later actual experience\u201d); cf. Lawlor v. National Screen Service Corp., 349 U. S. 322, 328 (1955) (judgment that \u201cprecludes recovery on claims arising prior to its entry\u201d nonetheless \u201ccannot be given the effect of extinguishing claims which did not even then exist\u201d); United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U. S. 144, 153 (1938) (\u201c[T]he constitutionality of a statute predicatedupon the existence of a particular state of facts may bechallenged by showing to the court that those facts have ceased to exist\u201d); Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Walters, 294 U. S. 405, 415 (1935) (\u201cA statute valid as to one set of facts may be invalid as to another. A statute valid when enacted may become invalid by change in the conditions to which it is applied\u201d (footnote omitted)); Third Nat. Bank of Louisville v. Stone 174 U. S. 432, 434 (1899) (\u201cA questioncannot be held to have been adjudged before an issue onthe subject could possibly have arisen\u201d). JUSTICE ALITO\u2019s dissenting opinion is simply wrong that changed circumstances showing that a challenged law has an unconstitutional effect can never give rise to a new claim. See post,at 14\u201315 (hereinafter the dissent).
\nChanged circumstances of this kind are why the claim presented in Abbott is not the same claim as petitioners\u2019 claim here. The claims in both Abbott and the present case involve \u201cimportant human values.\u201d Restatement (Second) of Judgments \u00a724, Comment f. We are concerned with H. B. 2\u2019s \u201ceffect . . . on women seeking abortions.\u201d Post, at 30 (ALITO, J., dissenting). And that effect has changed dramatically since petitioners filed their firstlawsuit. Abbott rested on facts and evidence presented tothe District Court in October 2013. 748 F. 3d, at 599,
\nn. 14 (declining to \u201cconsider any arguments\u201d based on \u201cdevelopments since the conclusion of the bench trial\u201d).
\n14 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nPetitioners\u2019 claim in this case rests in significant partupon later, concrete factual developments. Those developments matter. The Abbott plaintiffs brought their facialchallenge to the admitting-privileges requirement prior to its enforcement\u2014before many abortion clinics had closed and while it was still unclear how many clinics would beaffected. Here, petitioners bring an as-applied challengeto the requirement after its enforcement\u2014and after a large number of clinics have in fact closed. The postenforcementconsequences of H. B. 2 were unknowable before it wentinto effect. The Abbott court itself recognized that \u201c[l]ateras-applied challenges can always deal with subsequent,concrete constitutional issues.\u201d Id., at 589. And the Court of Appeals in this case properly decided that new evidence presented by petitioners had given rise to a new claim and that petitioners\u2019 as-applied challenges are not precluded.See 790 F. 3d, at 591 (\u201cWe now know with certainty thatthe non-[surgical-center] abortion facilities have actuallyclosed and physicians have been unable to obtain admitting privileges after diligent effort\u201d).
\nWhen individuals claim that a particular statute will produce serious constitutionally relevant adverse consequences before they have occurred\u2014and when the courts doubt their likely occurrence\u2014the factual difference thatthose adverse consequences have in fact occurred can make all the difference. Compare the Fifth Circuit\u2019s opinion in the earlier case, Abbott, supra, at 598 (\u201cAll of the major Texas cities . . . continue to have multiple clinics where many physicians will have or obtain hospital admitting privileges\u201d), with the facts found in this case, 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 680 (the two provisions will leave Texaswith seven or eight clinics). The challenge brought in this case and the one in Abbott are not the \u201cvery same claim,\u201d and the doctrine of claim preclusion consequently doesnot bar a new challenge to the constitutionality of the admitting-privileges requirement. New Hampshire v. Maine,
\n15 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\n532 U. S., at 748. That the litigants in Abbott did not seek review in this Court, as the dissent suggests they should have done, see post, at 10, does not prevent them fromseeking review of new claims that have arisen after Abbott was decided. In sum, the Restatement, cases from the Courts of Appeals, our own precedent, and simple logic combine to convince us that res judicata does not bar this claim.
\nThe Court of Appeals also concluded that the award of facial relief was precluded by principles of res judicata. 790 F. 3d, at 581. The court concluded that the District Court should not have \u201cgranted more relief than anyone requested or briefed.\u201d Id., at 580. But in addition to asking for as-applied relief, petitioners asked for \u201csuchother and further relief as the Court may deem just, proper, and equitable.\u201d App. 167. Their evidence and argu-ments convinced the District Court that the provision wasunconstitutional across the board. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure state that (with an exception not relevanthere) a \u201cfinal judgment should grant the relief to whicheach party is entitled, even if the party has not demanded that relief in its pleadings.\u201d Rule 54(c). And we have held that, if the arguments and evidence show that a statutory provision is unconstitutional on its face, an injunction prohibiting its enforcement is \u201cproper.\u201d Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm\u2019n, 558 U. S. 310, 333 (2010); see ibid. (in \u201cthe exercise of its judicial responsibility\u201d it maybe \u201cnecessary . . . for the Court to consider the facial validity\u201d of a statute, even though a facial challenge was not brought); cf. Fallon, As-Applied and Facial Challenges and Third-Party Standing, 113 Harv. L. Rev. 1321, 1339 (2000) (\u201c[O]nce a case is brought, no general categorical line bars a court from making broader pronouncements of invalidityin properly \u2018as-applied\u2019 cases\u201d). Nothing prevents thisCourt from awarding facial relief as the appropriate rem- edy for petitioners\u2019 as-applied claims.
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\nOpinion of the Court
\nB
\nClaim Preclusion\u2014Surgical-Center Requirement
\nThe Court of Appeals also held that claim preclusionbarred petitioners from contending that the surgical-center requirement is unconstitutional. 790 F. 3d, at 583. Although it recognized that petitioners did not bring thisclaim in Abbott, it believed that they should have done so.The court explained that petitioners\u2019 constitutional challenge to the surgical-center requirement and the challenge to the admitting-privileges requirement mounted in
\nAbbott
\n\u201carise from the same \u2018transactio[n] or series of connected transactions.\u2019 . . . The challenges involve the same parties and abortion facilities; the challengesare governed by the same legal standards; the provisions at issue were enacted at the same time as partof the same act; the provisions were motivated by a common purpose; the provisions are administered by the same state officials; and the challenges form a convenient trial unit because they rely on a commonnucleus of operative facts.\u201d 790 F. 3d, at 581.
\nFor all these reasons, the Court of Appeals held petitioners\u2019 challenge to H. B. 2\u2019s surgical-center requirement wasprecluded.
\nThe Court of Appeals failed, however, to take account ofmeaningful differences. The surgical-center provision and the admitting-privileges provision are separate, distinctprovisions of H. B. 2. They set forth two different, independent requirements with different enforcement dates.This Court has never suggested that challenges to twodifferent statutory provisions that serve two different functions must be brought in a single suit. And lower courts normally treat challenges to distinct regulatoryrequirements as \u201cseparate claims,\u201d even when they arepart of one overarching \u201c[g]overnment regulatory scheme.\u201d
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\n18 C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure \u00a74408, p. 52 (2d ed. 2002, Supp. 2015); see Hamilton\u2019s Bogarts, Inc. v. Michigan, 501 F. 3d 644, 650 (CA6 2007).
\nThat approach makes sense. The opposite approachadopted by the Court of Appeals would require treating every statutory enactment as a single transaction which agiven party would only be able to challenge one time, inone lawsuit, in order to avoid the effects of claim preclusion. Such a rule would encourage a kitchen-sink approach to any litigation challenging the validity of statutes. That outcome is less than optimal\u2014not only forlitigants, but for courts.
\nThere are other good reasons why petitioners should not have had to bring their challenge to the surgical-center provision at the same time they brought their first suit.The statute gave the Texas Department of State Health Services authority to make rules implementing the surgical-center requirement. H. B. 2, \u00a711(a), App. to Pet. for Cert. 201a. At the time petitioners filed Abbott, that state agency had not yet issued any such rules. Cf. EPA v. Brown, 431 U. S. 99, 104 (1977) (per curiam); 13B Wright, supra, \u00a73532.6, at 629 (3d ed. 2008) (most courts will not \u201cundertake review before rules have been adopted\u201d); Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. EPA, 859 F. 2d 156, 204 (CADC 1988).
\nFurther, petitioners might well have expected that thoserules when issued would contain provisions grandfathering some then-existing abortion facilities and granting fullor partial waivers to others. After all, more than three quarters of non-abortion-related surgical centers hadbenefited from that kind of provision. See 46 F. Supp. 3d,at 680\u2013681 (336 of 433 existing Texas surgical centershave been grandfathered or otherwise enjoy a waiver of some of the surgical-center requirements); see also App. 299\u2013302, 443\u2013447, 468\u2013469.
\n18 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nFinally, the relevant factual circumstances changedbetween Abbott and the present lawsuit, as we previously described. See supra, at 14\u201315.
\nThe dissent musters only one counterargument. According to the dissent, if statutory provisions \u201cimpos[e] thesame kind of burden . . . on the same kind of right\u201d and have mutually reinforcing effects, \u201cit is evident that\u201d theyare \u201cpart of the same transaction\u201d and must be challenged together. Post, at 20, 22. But for the word \u201cevident,\u201d the dissent points to no support for this conclusion, and wefind it unconvincing. Statutes are often voluminous, with many related, yet distinct, provisions. Plaintiffs, in order to preserve their claims, need not challenge each suchprovision of, say, the USA PATRIOT Act, the BipartisanCampaign Reform Act of 2002, the National Labor Relations Act, the Clean Water Act, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in their first lawsuit.
\nFor all of these reasons, we hold that the petitioners didnot have to bring their challenge to the surgical-centerprovision when they challenged the admitting-privileges provision in Abbott. We accordingly hold that the doctrineof claim preclusion does not prevent them from bringing that challenge now.
\n* * *
\nNone of petitioners\u2019 claims are barred by res judicata.Five experts in civil procedure argued, in a brief supporting petitioners\u2019 request for certiorari, that \u201cthe panel\u2019sprocedural ruling is so clearly incorrect\u201d that there was no reason to decline review. Brief for Professor Michael Dorf et al. as Amici Curiae 22. For all of the reasons described above, we agree that the Court of Appeals\u2019 procedural ruling was incorrect. We consequently proceed to considerthe merits of petitioners\u2019 claims.
\n19 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\nIII
\nUndue Burden\u2014Legal Standard We begin with the standard, as described in Casey. We recognize that the \u201cState has a legitimate interest inseeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient.\u201d Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, 150 (1973). But, we added, \u201ca statute which, while furthering [a] valid state interest, has the effect of placing asubstantial obstacle in the path of a woman\u2019s choice cannot be considered a permissible means of serving its legitimate ends.\u201d Casey, 505 U. S., at 877 (plurality opinion).Moreover, \u201c[u]nnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to awoman seeking an abortion impose an undue burden onthe right.\u201d Id., at 878. The Court of Appeals wrote that a state law is \u201cconstitutional if: (1) it does not have the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus; and (2) it is reasonably related to (or designed to further) a legitimate state interest.\u201d 790 F. 3d, at 572. The Court of Appeals went on to hold that \u201cthe district court erred by substituting its own judgment for that of the legislature\u201d when it conducted its \u201cundue burden inquiry,\u201d in part because \u201cmedical uncertainty underlying a statute is for resolution by legislatures, not the courts.\u201d Id., at 587 (citing Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U. S. 124, 163 (2007)). The Court of Appeals\u2019 articulation of the relevant standard is incorrect. The first part of the Court of Appeals\u2019 testmay be read to imply that a district court should not consider the existence or nonexistence of medical benefits when considering whether a regulation of abortion constitutes an undue burden. The rule announced in Casey, however, requires that courts consider the burdens a law imposes on abortion access together with the benefits
\n20 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nthose laws confer. See 505 U. S., at 887\u2013898 (opinion of the Court) (performing this balancing with respect to aspousal notification provision); id., at 899\u2013901 (joint opinion of O\u2019Connor, KENNEDY, and Souter, JJ.) (same balancing with respect to a parental notification provision). And the second part of the test is wrong to equate the judicial review applicable to the regulation of a constitutionally protected personal liberty with the less strict review applicable where, for example, economic legislation is at issue.See, e.g., Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483, 491 (1955). The Court of Appeals\u2019 approach simply does not match the standard that this Court laid out in Casey, which asks courts to consider whether any burden imposed on abortion access is \u201cundue.\u201d
\nThe statement that legislatures, and not courts, mustresolve questions of medical uncertainty is also inconsistent with this Court\u2019s case law. Instead, the Court, when determining the constitutionality of laws regulatingabortion procedures, has placed considerable weight uponevidence and argument presented in judicial proceedings.In Casey, for example, we relied heavily on the DistrictCourt\u2019s factual findings and the research-based submissions of amici in declaring a portion of the law at issue unconstitutional. 505 U. S., at 888\u2013894 (opinion of the Court) (discussing evidence related to the prevalence ofspousal abuse in determining that a spousal notification provision erected an undue burden to abortion access).And, in Gonzales the Court, while pointing out that wemust review legislative \u201cfactfinding under a deferential standard,\u201d added that we must not \u201cplace dispositiveweight\u201d on those \u201cfindings.\u201d 550 U. S., at 165. Gonzales went on to point out that the \u201cCourt retains an independent constitutional duty to review factual findings where constitutional rights are at stake.\u201d Ibid. (emphasis added).Although there we upheld a statute regulating abortion,we did not do so solely on the basis of legislative findings
\n21 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\nexplicitly set forth in the statute, noting that \u201cevidence presented in the District Courts contradicts\u201d some of the legislative findings. Id., at 166. In these circumstances, we said, \u201c[u]ncritical deference to Congress\u2019 factual findings . . . is inappropriate.\u201d Ibid.
\nUnlike in Gonzales, the relevant statute here does not set forth any legislative findings. Rather, one is left to infer that the legislature sought to further a constitutionally acceptable objective (namely, protecting women\u2019s health). Id., at 149\u2013150. For a district court to give significant weight to evidence in the judicial record in these circumstances is consistent with this Court\u2019s case law. As we shall describe, the District Court did so here. It did not simply substitute its own judgment for that of the legislature. It considered the evidence in the record\u2014includingexpert evidence, presented in stipulations, depositions,and testimony. It then weighed the asserted benefitsagainst the burdens. We hold that, in so doing, the District Court applied the correct legal standard.
\nIV
\nUndue Burden\u2014Admitting-Privileges Requirement
\nTurning to the lower courts\u2019 evaluation of the evidence,we first consider the admitting-privileges requirement. Before the enactment of H. B. 2, doctors who provided abortions were required to \u201chave admitting privileges or have a working arrangement with a physician(s) who hasadmitting privileges at a local hospital in order to ensurethe necessary back up for medical complications.\u201d Tex. Admin. Code, tit. 25, \u00a7139.56 (2009) (emphasis added). The new law changed this requirement by requiring that a\u201cphysician performing or inducing an abortion . . . must,on the date the abortion is performed or induced, haveactive admitting privileges at a hospital that . . . is located not further than 30 miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced.\u201d Tex. Health & Safety
\n22 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nCode Ann. \u00a7171.0031(a). The District Court held that the legislative change imposed an \u201cundue burden\u201d on a woman\u2019s right to have an abortion. We conclude that there is adequate legal and factual support for the District Court\u2019sconclusion.
\nThe purpose of the admitting-privileges requirement is to help ensure that women have easy access to a hospital should complications arise during an abortion procedure.Brief for Respondents 32\u201337. But the District Court found that it brought about no such health-related benefit. The court found that \u201c[t]he great weight of evidence demonstrates that, before the act\u2019s passage, abortion in Texas was extremely safe with particularly low rates of serious complications and virtually no deaths occurring on account of the procedure.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 684. Thus, there was no significant health-related problem that thenew law helped to cure.
\nThe evidence upon which the court based this conclusion included, among other things:
\n\u2022
\nA collection of at least five peer-reviewed studies on abortion complications in the first trimester, showing that the highest rate of major complications\u2014including thosecomplications requiring hospital admission\u2014was less thanone-quarter of 1%. See App. 269\u2013270.
\n\u2022
\nFigures in three peer-reviewed studies showing that the highest complication rate found for the much rarer secondtrimester abortion was less than one-half of 1% (0.45% orabout 1 out of about 200). Id., at 270.
\n\u2022
\nExpert testimony to the effect that complications rarelyrequire hospital admission, much less immediate transfer to a hospital from an outpatient clinic. Id., at 266\u2013267 (citing a study of complications occurring within six weeksafter 54,911 abortions that had been paid for by the fee-for-service California Medicaid Program finding that theincidence of complications was 2.1%, the incidence of
\n23 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\ncomplications requiring hospital admission was 0.23%,and that of the 54,911 abortion patients included in thestudy, only 15 required immediate transfer to the hospital on the day of the abortion).
\n\u2022 Expert testimony stating that \u201cit is extremely unlikelythat a patient will experience a serious complication at theclinic that requires emergent hospitalization\u201d and \u201cin the rare case in which [one does], the quality of care that the patient receives is not affected by whether the abortionprovider has admitting privileges at the hospital.\u201d Id., at
\n381.
\n\u2022
\nExpert testimony stating that in respect to surgicalabortion patients who do suffer complications requiringhospitalization, most of these complications occur in thedays after the abortion, not on the spot. See id., at 382; see also id., at 267.
\n\u2022
\nExpert testimony stating that a delay before the onset of complications is also expected for medical abortions, as\u201cabortifacient drugs take time to exert their effects, andthus the abortion itself almost always occurs after the patient has left the abortion facility.\u201d Id., at 278.
\n\u2022
\nSome experts added that, if a patient needs a hospital inthe day or week following her abortion, she will likely seek medical attention at the hospital nearest her home. See, e.g., id., at 153.
\nWe have found nothing in Texas\u2019 record evidence thatshows that, compared to prior law (which required a \u201cworking arrangement\u201d with a doctor with admittingprivileges), the new law advanced Texas\u2019 legitimate interest in protecting women\u2019s health.
\nWe add that, when directly asked at oral argument whether Texas knew of a single instance in which the new requirement would have helped even one woman obtainbetter treatment, Texas admitted that there was no evidence in the record of such a case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 47.
\n24 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nThis answer is consistent with the findings of the otherFederal District Courts that have considered the health benefits of other States\u2019 similar admitting-privileges laws. See Planned Parenthood of Wis., Inc. v. Van Hollen, 94
\nF. Supp. 3d 949, 953 (WD Wis. 2015), aff \u2019d sub nom. Planned Parenthood of Wis., Inc. v. Schimel, 806 F. 3d 908 (CA7 2015); Planned Parenthood Southeast, Inc. v. Strange, 33 F. Supp. 3d 1330, 1378 (MD Ala. 2014).
\nAt the same time, the record evidence indicates that the admitting-privileges requirement places a \u201csubstantialobstacle in the path of a woman\u2019s choice.\u201d Casey, 505
\nU. S., at 877 (plurality opinion). The District Court found, as of the time the admitting-privileges requirement beganto be enforced, the number of facilities providing abortions dropped in half, from about 40 to about 20. 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 681. Eight abortion clinics closed in the months leading up to the requirement\u2019s effective date. See App. 229\u2013230; cf. Brief for Planned Parenthood Federationof America et al. as Amici Curiae 14 (noting that abortionfacilities in Waco, San Angelo, and Midland no longer operate because Planned Parenthood is \u201cunable to find local physicians in those communities with privileges whoare willing to provide abortions due to the size of those communities and the hostility that abortion providersface\u201d). Eleven more closed on the day the admitting-privileges requirement took effect. See App. 229\u2013230; Tr. of Oral Arg. 58.
\nOther evidence helps to explain why the new requirement led to the closure of clinics. We read that other evidence in light of a brief filed in this Court by the Society of Hospital Medicine. That brief describes the undisputed general fact that \u201chospitals often condition admitting privileges on reaching a certain number of admissionsper year.\u201d Brief for Society of Hospital Medicine et al. as Amici Curiae 11. Returning to the District Court record,we note that, in direct testimony, the president of Nova
\nCite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016) 25
\nOpinion of the Court
\nHealth Systems, implicitly relying on this general fact, pointed out that it would be difficult for doctors regularlyperforming abortions at the El Paso clinic to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals because \u201c[d]uring the past 10 years, over 17,000 abortion procedures were performed at the El Paso clinic [and n]ot a single one of those patients had to be transferred to a hospital for emergency treatment, much less admitted to the hospital.\u201d App. 730.In a word, doctors would be unable to maintain admitting privileges or obtain those privileges for the future, becausethe fact that abortions are so safe meant that providers were unlikely to have any patients to admit.
\nOther amicus briefs filed here set forth without disputeother common prerequisites to obtaining admitting privileges that have nothing to do with ability to perform medical procedures. See Brief for Medical Staff Professionals as Amici Curiae 20\u201325 (listing, for example, requirementsthat an applicant has treated a high number of patients inthe hospital setting in the past year, clinical data requirements, residency requirements, and other discretionary factors); see also Brief for American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists et al. as Amici Curiae 16 (ACOG Brief) (\u201c[S]ome academic hospitals will only allow medical staff membership for clinicians who also . . . accept faculty appointments\u201d). Again, returning to the District Court record, we note that Dr. Lynn of theMcAllen clinic, a veteran obstetrics and gynecology doctorwho estimates that he has delivered over 15,000 babies in his 38 years in practice was unable to get admitting privileges at any of the seven hospitals within 30 miles of hisclinic. App. 390\u2013394. He was refused admitting privilegesat a nearby hospital for reasons, as the hospital wrote, \u201cnot based on clinical competence considerations.\u201d Id., at 393\u2013394 (emphasis deleted). The admitting-privilegesrequirement does not serve any relevant credentialing function.
\n26 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nIn our view, the record contains sufficient evidence that the admitting-privileges requirement led to the closure of half of Texas\u2019 clinics, or thereabouts. Those closures meant fewer doctors, longer waiting times, and increased crowding. Record evidence also supports the finding thatafter the admitting-privileges provision went into effect,the \u201cnumber of women of reproductive age living in acounty . . . more than 150 miles from a provider increased from approximately 86,000 to 400,000 . . . and the number of women living in a county more than 200 miles from aprovider from approximately 10,000 to 290,000.\u201d 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 681. We recognize that increased driving distances do not always constitute an \u201cundue burden.\u201d See Casey, 505 U. S., at 885\u2013887 (joint opinion of O\u2019Connor, KENNEDY, and Souter, JJ.). But here, those increases are but one additional burden, which, when taken together with others that the closings broughtabout, and when viewed in light of the virtual absence ofany health benefit, lead us to conclude that the recordadequately supports the District Court\u2019s \u201cundue burden\u201dconclusion. Cf. id., at 895 (opinion of the Court) (findingburden \u201cundue\u201d when requirement places \u201csubstantial obstacle to a woman\u2019s choice\u201d in \u201ca large fraction of thecases in which\u201d it \u201cis relevant\u201d).
\nThe dissent\u2019s only argument why these clinic closures, as well as the ones discussed in Part V, infra, may nothave imposed an undue burden is this: Although \u201cH. B. 2 caused the closure of some clinics,\u201d post, at 26 (emphasisadded), other clinics may have closed for other reasons (so we should not \u201cactually count\u201d the burdens resulting from those closures against H. B. 2), post, at 30\u201331. But petitioners satisfied their burden to present evidence of causation by presenting direct testimony as well as plausibleinferences to be drawn from the timing of the clinic closures. App. 182\u2013183, 228\u2013231. The District Court credited that evidence and concluded from it that H. B. 2 in fact
\n27 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\nled to the clinic closures. 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 680\u2013681. The dissent\u2019s speculation that perhaps other evidence, not presented at trial or credited by the District Court, mighthave shown that some clinics closed for unrelated reasons does not provide sufficient ground to disturb the DistrictCourt\u2019s factual finding on that issue.
\nIn the same breath, the dissent suggests that one benefit of H. B. 2\u2019s requirements would be that they might \u201cforce unsafe facilities to shut down.\u201d Post, at 26. To support that assertion, the dissent points to the KermitGosnell scandal. Gosnell, a physician in Pennsylvania, was convicted of first-degree murder and manslaughter. He \u201cstaffed his facility with unlicensed and indifferent workers, and then let them practice medicine unsupervised\u201d and had \u201c[d]irty facilities; unsanitary instruments; an absence of functioning monitoring and resuscitationequipment; the use of cheap, but dangerous, drugs; illegalprocedures; and inadequate emergency access for whenthings inevitably went wrong.\u201d Report of Grand Juryin No. 0009901\u20132008 (1st Jud. Dist. Pa., Jan. 14,2011), p. 24, online at http:\/\/www.phila.gov\/districtattorney\/pdfs\/grandjurywomensmedical.pdf (as last visited June 24, 2016). Gosnell\u2019s behavior was terribly wrong.But there is no reason to believe that an extra layerof regulation would have affected that behavior. Deter-mined wrongdoers, already ignoring existing statutes and safety measures, are unlikely to be convinced to adopt safe practices by a new overlay of regulations.Regardless, Gosnell\u2019s deplorable crimes could escapedetection only because his facility went uninspected formore than 15 years. Id., at 20. Pre-existing Texas law already contained numerous detailed regulations coveringabortion facilities, including a requirement that facilitiesbe inspected at least annually. See infra, at 28 (describing those regulations). The record contains nothing to suggestthat H. B. 2 would be more effective than pre-existing
\n28 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nTexas law at deterring wrongdoers like Gosnell from criminal behavior.
\nV
\nUndue Burden\u2014Surgical-Center Requirement
\nThe second challenged provision of Texas\u2019 new law setsforth the surgical-center requirement. Prior to enactment of the new requirement, Texas law required abortionfacilities to meet a host of health and safety requirements. Under those pre-existing laws, facilities were subject to annual reporting and recordkeeping requirements, see Tex. Admin. Code, tit. 25, \u00a7\u00a7139.4, 139.5, 139.55, 139.58; a quality assurance program, see \u00a7139.8; personnel policiesand staffing requirements, see \u00a7\u00a7139.43, 139.46; physical and environmental requirements, see \u00a7139.48; infectioncontrol standards, see \u00a7139.49; disclosure requirements, see \u00a7139.50; patient-rights standards, see \u00a7139.51; and medical- and clinical-services standards, see \u00a7139.53, including anesthesia standards, see \u00a7139.59. These requirements are policed by random and announced inspections, at least annually, see \u00a7\u00a7139.23, 139.31; Tex. Health& Safety Code Ann. \u00a7245.006(a) (West 2010), as well asadministrative penalties, injunctions, civil penalties,and criminal penalties for certain violations, see Tex. Admin. Code, tit. 25, \u00a7139.33; Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann. \u00a7245.011 (criminal penalties for certain reporting violations).
\nH. B. 2 added the requirement that an \u201cabortion facility\u201d meet the \u201cminimum standards . . . for ambulatory surgical centers\u201d under Texas law. \u00a7245.010(a) (West Cum. Supp.2015). The surgical-center regulations include, amongother things, detailed specifications relating to the size of the nursing staff, building dimensions, and other buildingrequirements. The nursing staff must comprise at least \u201can adequate number of [registered nurses] on duty tomeet the following minimum staff requirements: director
\n29 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\nof the department (or designee), and supervisory and staffpersonnel for each service area to assure the immediate availability of [a registered nurse] for emergency care orfor any patient when needed,\u201d Tex. Admin. Code, tit. 25, \u00a7135.15(a)(3) (2016), as well as \u201ca second individual onduty on the premises who is trained and currently certified in basic cardiac life support until all patients havebeen discharged from the facility\u201d for facilities that provide moderate sedation, such as most abortion facilities, \u00a7135.15(b)(2)(A). Facilities must include a full surgicalsuite with an operating room that has \u201ca clear floor area ofat least 240 square feet\u201d in which \u201c[t]he minimum cleardimension between built-in cabinets, counters, and shelves shall be 14 feet.\u201d \u00a7135.52(d)(15)(A). There must be a preoperative patient holding room and a postoperative recovery suite. The former \u201cshall be provided and arranged in a one-way traffic pattern so that patients entering from outside the surgical suite can change, gown, and move directly into the restricted corridor of the surgicalsuite,\u201d \u00a7135.52(d)(10)(A), and the latter \u201cshall be arranged to provide a one-way traffic pattern from the restrictedsurgical corridor to the postoperative recovery suite, and then to the extended observation rooms or discharge,\u201d \u00a7135.52(d)(9)(A). Surgical centers must meet numerousother spatial requirements, see generally \u00a7135.52, including specific corridor widths, \u00a7135.52(e)(1)(B)(iii). Surgicalcenters must also have an advanced heating, ventilation,and air conditioning system, \u00a7135.52(g)(5), and mustsatisfy particular piping system and plumbing requirements, \u00a7135.52(h). Dozens of other sections list additional requirements that apply to surgical centers. See generally\u00a7\u00a7135.1\u2013135.56.
\nThere is considerable evidence in the record supporting the District Court\u2019s findings indicating that the statutoryprovision requiring all abortion facilities to meet all surgical-center standards does not benefit patients and is not
\n30 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nnecessary. The District Court found that \u201crisks are not appreciably lowered for patients who undergo abortions at ambulatory surgical centers as compared to nonsurgical-center facilities.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 684. The court added that women \u201cwill not obtain better care or experience more frequent positive outcomes at an ambulatory surgicalcenter as compared to a previously licensed facility.\u201d Ibid. And these findings are well supported.
\nThe record makes clear that the surgical-center requirement provides no benefit when complications arise inthe context of an abortion produced through medication.That is because, in such a case, complications would almost always arise only after the patient has left the facility. See supra, at 23; App. 278. The record also contains evidence indicating that abortions taking place in anabortion facility are safe\u2014indeed, safer than numerousprocedures that take place outside hospitals and to whichTexas does not apply its surgical-center requirements.See, e.g., id., at 223\u2013224, 254, 275\u2013279. The total number of deaths in Texas from abortions was five in the period from 2001 to 2012, or about one every two years (that is to say, one out of about 120,000 to 144,000 abortions). Id., at
\n272. Nationwide, childbirth is 14 times more likely thanabortion to result in death, ibid., but Texas law allows a midwife to oversee childbirth in the patient\u2019s own home.Colonoscopy, a procedure that typically takes place outsidea hospital (or surgical center) setting, has a mortality rate 10 times higher than an abortion. Id., at 276\u2013277; see ACOG Brief 15 (the mortality rate for liposuction, another outpatient procedure, is 28 times higher than the mortality rate for abortion). Medical treatment after an incomplete miscarriage often involves a procedure identical tothat involved in a nonmedical abortion, but it often takes place outside a hospital or surgical center. App. 254; seeACOG Brief 14 (same). And Texas partly or wholly grandfathers (or waives in whole or in part the surgical-center
\n31 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\nrequirement for) about two-thirds of the facilities to whichthe surgical-center standards apply. But it neither grandfathers nor provides waivers for any of the facilities thatperform abortions. 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 680\u2013681; see App.
\n184. These facts indicate that the surgical-center provision imposes \u201ca requirement that simply is not based ondifferences\u201d between abortion and other surgical procedures \u201cthat are reasonably related to\u201d preserving women\u2019shealth, the asserted \u201cpurpos[e] of the Act in which it is found.\u201d Doe, 410 U. S., at 194 (quoting Morey v. Doud, 354
\nU. S. 457, 465 (1957); internal quotation marks omitted).
\nMoreover, many surgical-center requirements are inappropriate as applied to surgical abortions. Requiringscrub facilities; maintaining a one-way traffic patternthrough the facility; having ceiling, wall, and floor fin- ishes; separating soiled utility and sterilization rooms; and regulating air pressure, filtration, and humidity controlcan help reduce infection where doctors conduct procedures that penetrate the skin. App. 304. But abortions typically involve either the administration of medicines orprocedures performed through the natural opening of thebirth canal, which is itself not sterile. See id., at 302\u2013303. Nor do provisions designed to safeguard heavily sedated patients (unable to help themselves) during fire emergencies, see Tex. Admin. Code, tit. 25, \u00a7135.41; App. 304, provide any help to abortion patients, as abortion facilitiesdo not use general anesthesia or deep sedation, id., at 304\u2013305. Further, since the few instances in which serious complications do arise following an abortion almostalways require hospitalization, not treatment at a surgical center, id., at 255\u2013256, surgical-center standards will nothelp in those instances either.
\nThe upshot is that this record evidence, along with theabsence of any evidence to the contrary, provides ample support for the District Court\u2019s conclusion that \u201c[m]any of the building standards mandated by the act and its im32
\nWHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nplementing rules have such a tangential relationship topatient safety in the context of abortion as to be nearlyarbitrary.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 684. That conclusion, along with the supporting evidence, provides sufficient supportfor the more general conclusion that the surgical-center requirement \u201cwill not [provide] better care or . . . morefrequent positive outcomes.\u201d Ibid. The record evidence thus supports the ultimate legal conclusion that thesurgical-center requirement is not necessary.
\nAt the same time, the record provides adequate evidentiary support for the District Court\u2019s conclusion that the surgical-center requirement places a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking an abortion. The partiesstipulated that the requirement would further reduce thenumber of abortion facilities available to seven or eight facilities, located in Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas\/Fort Worth. See App. 182\u2013183. In the District Court\u2019s view, the proposition that these \u201cseven or eight providers could meet the demand of the entire State stretches credulity.\u201d 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 682. We take this statement as a finding that these few facilities could not \u201cmeet\u201d that \u201cdemand.\u201d
\nThe Court of Appeals held that this finding was \u201cclearlyerroneous.\u201d 790 F. 3d, at 590. It wrote that the finding rested upon the \u201c\u2018ipse dixit\u2019\u201d of one expert, Dr. Grossman, and that there was no evidence that the current surgicalcenters (i.e., the seven or eight) are operating at full capacity or could not increase capacity. Ibid. Unlike the Court of Appeals, however, we hold that the record providesadequate support for the District Court\u2019s finding.
\nFor one thing, the record contains charts and oral testimony by Dr. Grossman, who said that, as a result of the surgical-center requirement, the number of abortions that the clinics would have to provide would rise from \u201c\u201814,000abortions annually\u2019\u201d to \u201c\u201860,000 to 70,000\u2019\u201d\u2014an increase by a factor of about five. Id., at 589\u2013590. The District
\n33 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\nCourt credited Dr. Grossman as an expert witness. See 46
\nF. Supp. 3d, at 678\u2013679, n. 1; id., at 681, n. 4 (finding \u201cindicia of reliability\u201d in Dr. Grossman\u2019s conclusions). The Federal Rules of Evidence state that an expert may testify in the \u201cform of an opinion\u201d as long as that opinion rests upon \u201csufficient facts or data\u201d and \u201creliable principles and methods.\u201d Rule 702. In this case Dr. Grossman\u2019s opinion rested upon his participation, along with other universityresearchers, in research that tracked \u201cthe number of openfacilities providing abortion care in the state by . . . requesting information from the Texas Department of StateHealth Services . . . [, t]hrough interviews with clinic staff[,] and review of publicly available information.\u201d App.
\n227. The District Court acted within its legal authority indetermining that Dr. Grossman\u2019s testimony was admissible. See Fed. Rule Evid. 702; see also Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579, 589 (1993) (\u201c[U]nder the Rules the trial judge must ensure that anyand all [expert] evidence admitted is not only relevant, butreliable\u201d); 29 C. Wright & V. Gold, Federal Practice andProcedure: Evidence \u00a76266, p. 302 (2016) (\u201cRule 702 impose[s] on the trial judge additional responsibility to determine whether that [expert] testimony is likely to promote accurate factfinding\u201d).
\nFor another thing, common sense suggests that, moreoften than not, a physical facility that satisfies a certainphysical demand will not be able to meet five times that demand without expanding or otherwise incurring significant costs. Suppose that we know only that a certaingrocery store serves 200 customers per week, that a certain apartment building provides apartments for 200 families, that a certain train station welcomes 200 trains per day. While it is conceivable that the store, the apartment building, or the train station could just as easily provide for 1,000 customers, families, or trains at no significant additional cost, crowding, or delay, most of us
\n34 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nwould find this possibility highly improbable. The dissent takes issue with this general, intuitive point by arguing that many places operate below capacity and that in any event, facilities could simply hire additional providers. See post, at 32. We disagree that, according to commonsense, medical facilities, well known for their wait times, operate below capacity as a general matter. And the fact that so many facilities were forced to close by the admitting-privileges requirement means that hiring more physi-cians would not be quite as simple as the dissent suggests. Courts are free to base their findings on commonsenseinferences drawn from the evidence. And that is what the District Court did here.
\nThe dissent now seeks to discredit Dr. Grossman by pointing out that a preliminary prediction he made in histestimony in Abbott about the effect of the admitting-privileges requirement on capacity was not borne out after that provision went into effect. See post, at 31, n. 22. If every expert who overestimated or underestimated any figure could not be credited, courts would struggle to findexpert assistance. Moreover, making a hypothesis\u2014and then attempting to verify that hypothesis with furtherstudies, as Dr. Grossman did\u2014is not irresponsible. It is an essential element of the scientific method. The District Court\u2019s decision to credit Dr. Grossman\u2019s testimony wassound, particularly given that Texas provided no credibleexperts to rebut it. See 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 680, n. 3 (declining to credit Texas\u2019 expert witnesses, in part because Vincent Rue, a nonphysician consultant for Texas, had exercised \u201cconsiderable editorial and discretionary control over the contents of the experts\u2019 reports\u201d).
\nTexas suggests that the seven or eight remaining clinicscould expand sufficiently to provide abortions for the 60,000 to 72,000 Texas women who sought them each year. Because petitioners had satisfied their burden, theobligation was on Texas, if it could, to present evidence
\nCite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016) 35
\nOpinion of the Court
\nrebutting that issue to the District Court. Texas admitted that it presented no such evidence. Tr. of Oral Arg. 46. Instead, Texas argued before this Court that one new clinic now serves 9,000 women annually. Ibid. In addition to being outside the record, that example is not representative. The clinic to which Texas referred apparentlycost $26 million to construct\u2014a fact that even more clearly demonstrates that requiring seven or eight clinics to servefive times their usual number of patients does indeedrepresent an undue burden on abortion access. See Planned Parenthood Debuts New Building: Its $26 MillionCenter in Houston is Largest of Its Kind in U. S., Houston Chronicle, May 21, 2010, p. B1.
\nAttempting to provide the evidence that Texas did not, the dissent points to an exhibit submitted in Abbott showing that three Texas surgical centers, two in Dallas as well as the $26-million facility in Houston, are each capable of serving an average of 7,000 patients per year. See post, at 33\u201335. That \u201caverage\u201d is misleading. In addition to including the Houston clinic, which does not represent mostfacilities, it is underinclusive. It ignores the evidence as tothe Whole Woman\u2019s Health surgical-center facility in San Antonio, the capacity of which is described as \u201cseverelylimited.\u201d The exhibit does nothing to rebut the commonsense inference that the dramatic decline in the number of available facilities will cause a shortfall in capacity should H. B. 2 go into effect. And facilities that were still operating after the effective date of the admitting-privileges provision were not able to accommodate increased demand. See App. 238; Tr. of Oral Arg. 30\u201331; Brief for National Abortion Federation et al. as Amici Curiae 17\u201320 (citing clinics\u2019 experiences since the admitting-privileges requirement went into effect of 3week wait times, staff burnout, and waiting rooms so full, patients had to sit on the floor or wait outside).
\nMore fundamentally, in the face of no threat to women\u2019s
\n36 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\nhealth, Texas seeks to force women to travel long distances to get abortions in crammed-to-capacity superfacilities.Patients seeking these services are less likely to get the kind of individualized attention, serious conversation, and emotional support that doctors at less taxed facilities may have offered. Healthcare facilities and medical professionals are not fungible commodities. Surgical centersattempting to accommodate sudden, vastly increaseddemand, see 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 682, may find that quality of care declines. Another commonsense inference that the District Court made is that these effects would be harmful to, not supportive of, women\u2019s health. See id., at 682\u2013683.
\nFinally, the District Court found that the costs that acurrently licensed abortion facility would have to incur tomeet the surgical-center requirements were considerable, ranging from $1 million per facility (for facilities with adequate space) to $3 million per facility (where additional land must be purchased). Id., at 682. This evidence supports the conclusion that more surgical centers will not soon fill the gap when licensed facilities are forced to close.
\nWe agree with the District Court that the surgical-center requirement, like the admitting-privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women,poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions, and constitutes an \u201cundue burden\u201d on their constitutional right to do so.
\nVI We consider three additional arguments that Texasmakes and deem none persuasive. First, Texas argues that facial invalidation of both challenged provisions is precluded by H. B. 2\u2019s severability clause. See Brief for Respondents 50\u201352. The severabilityclause says that \u201cevery provision, section, subsection, sentence, clause, phrase, or word in this Act, and everyapplication of the provision in this Act, are severable from
\n37 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\neach other.\u201d H. B. 2, \u00a710(b), App. to Pet. for Cert. 200a. It further provides that if \u201cany application of any provisionin this Act to any person, group of persons, or circumstances is found by a court to be invalid, the remaining applications of that provision to all other persons and circumstances shall be severed and may not be affected.\u201d Ibid. That language, Texas argues, means that facialinvalidation of parts of the statute is not an option; instead, it says, the severability clause mandates a morenarrowly tailored judicial remedy. But the challengedprovisions of H. B. 2 close most of the abortion facilities in Texas and place added stress on those facilities able to remain open. They vastly increase the obstacles confronting women seeking abortions in Texas without providing any benefit to women\u2019s health capable of withstanding any meaningful scrutiny. The provisions are unconstitutional on their face: Including a severability provision in the law does not change that conclusion.
\nSeverability clauses, it is true, do express the enactinglegislature\u2019s preference for a narrow judicial remedy. As a general matter, we attempt to honor that preference. But our cases have never required us to proceed application byconceivable application when confronted with a faciallyunconstitutional statutory provision. \u201cWe have held that a severability clause is an aid merely; not an inexorable command.\u201d Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521
\nU. S. 844, 884\u2013885, n. 49 (1997) (internal quotation marksomitted). Indeed, if a severability clause could imposesuch a requirement on courts, legislatures would easily beable to insulate unconstitutional statutes from most facial review. See ibid. (\u201cIt would certainly be dangerous if thelegislature could set a net large enough to catch all possible offenders, and leave it to the courts to step inside and say who could be rightfully detained, and who should be set at large. This would, to some extent, substitute the judicial for the legislative department of the government\u201d
\n38 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court
\n(internal quotation marks omitted)). A severability clauseis not grounds for a court to \u201cdevise a judicial remedy that . . . entail[s] quintessentially legislative work.\u201d Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New Eng., 546 U. S. 320, 329 (2006). Such an approach would inflict enormouscosts on both courts and litigants, who would be required to proceed in this manner whenever a single application of a law might be valid. We reject Texas\u2019 invitation to pavethe way for legislatures to immunize their statutes fromfacial review.
\nTexas similarly argues that instead of finding the entiresurgical-center provision unconstitutional, we should invalidate (as applied to abortion clinics) only those spe-cific surgical-center regulations that unduly burden the provision of abortions, while leaving in place other surgical-center regulations (for example, the reader could pickany of the various examples provided by the dissent, see post, at 42\u201343). See Brief for Respondents 52\u201353. As we have explained, Texas\u2019 attempt to broadly draft a requirement to sever \u201capplications\u201d does not require us toproceed in piecemeal fashion when we have found the statutory provisions at issue facially unconstitutional.
\nNor is that approach to the regulations even required by
\nH. B. 2 itself. The statute was meant to require abortion facilities to meet the integrated surgical-center standards\u2014not some subset thereof. The severability clauserefers to severing applications of words and phrases in the Act, such as the surgical-center requirement as a whole.See H. B. 2, \u00a74, App. to Pet. for Cert. 194a. It does not say that courts should go through the individual components of the different, surgical-center statute, let alone the individual regulations governing surgical centers to see whether those requirements are severable from each other as applied to abortion facilities. Facilities subject to some subset of those regulations do not qualify as surgical centers. And the risk of harm caused by inconsistent
\n39 Cite as: 579 U. S. ____ (2016)
\nOpinion of the Court
\napplication of only a fraction of interconnected regulationscounsels against doing so.
\nSecond, Texas claims that the provisions at issue here do not impose a substantial obstacle because the womenaffected by those laws are not a \u201clarge fraction\u201d of Texanwomen \u201cof reproductive age,\u201d which Texas reads Casey to have required. See Brief for Respondents 45, 48. But Casey used the language \u201clarge fraction\u201d to refer to \u201ca large fraction of cases in which [the provision at issue] is relevant,\u201d a class narrower than \u201call women,\u201d \u201cpregnant women,\u201d or even \u201cthe class of women seeking abortions identified by the State.\u201d 505 U. S., at 894\u2013895 (opinion of the Court) (emphasis added). Here, as in Casey, the relevant denominator is \u201cthose [women] for whom [the provision] is an actual rather than an irrelevant restriction.\u201d Id., at 895.
\nThird, Texas looks for support to Simopoulos v. Virginia, 462 U. S. 506 (1983), a case in which this Court upheld a surgical-center requirement as applied to second-trimester abortions. This case, however, unlike Simopoulos, involves restrictions applicable to all abortions, not simply to those that take place during the second trimester. Most abortions in Texas occur in the first trimester, not the second. App. 236. More importantly, in Casey we discarded the trimester framework, and we now use \u201cviability\u201d as the relevant point at which a State may begin limiting women\u2019s access to abortion for reasonsunrelated to maternal health. 505 U. S., at 878 (plurality opinion). Because the second trimester includes time that is both previability and postviability, Simopoulos cannot provide clear guidance. Further, the Court in Simopoulosfound that the petitioner in that case, unlike petitionershere, had waived any argument that the regulation did not significantly help protect women\u2019s health. 462 U. S., at 517.
\n40 WHOLE WOMAN\u2019S HEALTH v. HELLERSTEDT
\nOpinion of the Court<\/p>\n
* * * For these reasons the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
\nIt is so ordered.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, DC…In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 878 (1992), a plurality of the Court concluded that there \u201cexists\u201d an \u201cundue burden\u201d on a woman\u2019s right to decide to have an abortion, and consequently a provision of law is constitutionally invalid, if the \u201cpurpose or effect\u201d of the provision \u201cis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,16,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-law-enforcement","category-life-style","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/1024px-Supreme_Court_US_2010.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}