The eight-justice Supreme Court bench will begin to hear a challenge to Texas’ abortion regulation that requires abortionists to have admitting privileges at a local hospital this week. Pro-abortion advocates have seen the number of abortion clinics close in recent years because of, in part, regulations like the ones in Texas. So they will argue that the Lone Star State’s requirements for abortionists to know CPR, keep clean facilities, and have fire prevention measures are an undue burden on the abortion industry. Don’t they want safety for women? “The Supreme Court now has an opportunity to confirm that states have a legitimate interest in ensuring the safety and health of women who enter abortion clinics,” The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Slattery wrote. “The justices would do well to uphold Texas’ reasonable law and reconsider the long, deadly shadow that its abortion decisions have cast over American law, medicine, and society.”

Because of an even number of judges, a tie will automatically affirm the lower court’s ruling that Texas’ rules are reasonable. That’s why more than 100 women have filed briefs taking aim at Justice Anthony Kennedy (viewed as the swing vote of the bench), arguing that their abortions were right for them. The women think that making moral arguments to the justice who sided with the case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide might tip him to support abortion. Since the justices are all too often ready to legislate from the bench, the Left thinks it is good and proper to lobby the justices.