The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday that, where abortion is concerned, women's health is not primary.
In doing so, the high court by a 5-3 vote struck down Texas laws that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges in nearby hospitals and that the abortion clinics meet the requirements of an ambulatory surgery unit.
Thus, as variously has been the case across the country, doctors performing abortions are often the ones who can't get another job, might not be accepted by a local hospital or are looking for easy money without a lot of strings.
No problem, the court says.
The clinics where the unborn child is killed and surgically pulled out of the mother, thus, need not - as is the case with many outpatient surgery centers - be licensed, have certain infection controls in place, have a nurse trained in emergency equipment on hand, or have a prior transfer agreement with a nearby hospital if complications arise.
No problem, the court says.
As bad as the decision was, the hypocrisy was blatant.
"We remain strongly committed to the protection of women's health," said President Obama.
Women's health? No matter what you may believe about the morality of taking the life of an unborn child, the decision in no way improved matters for women's health. Indeed, it moved it backward.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called it "a victory for women."
Since when is the assurance of a less safe outcome a victory for women?
While the laws on the Texas books, instead, made it safer for women to have what is a legal though abhorrent procedure, we don't kid ourselves that the laws also had in mind to lower the number of abortions.
But how much effect the 2013 laws had in the Lone Star State is difficult to tell. Its abortion rate, like that in the country, has been falling in the last 25 years. The number of Texas abortions fell by 4,500 from 2012 to 2013, but that is the last year for which Centers for Disease Control numbers are available.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruling also is likely to have an effect on Tennessee, which passed laws similar to those in Texas in 2012 and 2015. As David Fowler, a former Chattanooga state senator and president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee pointed out, "few states enforce laws once one state's law is struck down because they realize they would lose if they get sued, but legally our law was not 'ruled unconstitutional per se.'"
Though Monday's ruling was a blow and had nothing to do with improving women's health, pro-life supporters should take heart in the continuing nationwide abortion drop, a drop that has occurred as more and more women have been able to see the activity of their children in utero, the earlier viability of their children outside the womb and the cruelty done to the tiny lives who are snuffed out.