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Breaking: SCOTUS Strikes Down Texas Abortion Laws
Via NBC:
Published in LawThe U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down one of the nation’s toughest restrictions on abortion, a Texas law that women’s groups said would have forced more than three-quarters of the state’s clinics to shut down. Passed in 2013, the law said clinics providing abortion services must meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centers. And it required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Since the law was passed, the number of clinics providing abortion services in Texas dropped to 19 from 42. Opponents said that number would fall to ten if the Supreme Court upheld the law.
The Center for Reproductive Rights called the law “an absolute sham,” arguing that abortion patients rarely require hospitalization and that many patients simply take two pills.
[…]
The court’s decision will affect similar laws in twelve other states, some now on hold because of court challenges. The restrictions in Texas represented a new front in efforts to restrict abortion by focusing on protecting the health and safety of the mother rather than the life of the fetus.
Tom,
This is quite ridiculous. I don’t need to prove that the 23 abortion clinics that will go out of business are all Gosnells. They don’t meet basic surgical medical standards. They should already be out of business.
Regards,
Jim
This is why I consider abortion to be a national security issue. No nation can tolerate this injustice ( let alone celebrate it as we see its votaries doing) and expect the blessing or protection of a just God.
Either Trump or Clinton will be appointing Supreme Court justices come 2017. Who do you prefer?
As I pointed out above, there are many surgical procedures with equal risk done by all kinds of doctors (oral surgeons in particular, podiatrists, etc.) that are done in offices without meeting the standards of surgical centers. Why are they not included in this bill?
When I had a complicated wisdom tooth extraction done, I was fortunate to be able to bring along my own physician to monitor my procedure – my wife, a board-certified anesthesiologist. She inspected the crash cart to be sure it was properly stocked and up to date. Most patients don’t have that option.
No, they are not the same and should not be treated as such.
Again, I need to sit down and read the whole thing, but my sense is that the laws were bad (for the reasons I stated above) but should be constitutional.
This is my understanding of these sorts of laws. Some background on the Wisconsin one.
Tom,
The surgeons must answer these questions. However, I should suspect that the chance of dangerous internal hemorrhaging, infection, etc. is much greater with an abortion than with oral surgery or podiatrists. This sounds like the kind of wishful thinking that permeates the modern left. They wish is was safe so they just assume it to be. As long as it is abortion or birth control safety be damned.
Remember that Gosnell happened not in an isolated environment. Everyone in Philly knew that if you get a poor girl late term you send her to Gosnell. He’ll get the job done. They weren’t interested in how he was getting the job done. They didn’t want to know.
I think standards are very important in this.
Regards,
Jim
.
I believe the proper movie reference is, “Oh, Kay. Now who’s being naive?”
Yes, you’re winning. Abortion rates are down, pretty dramatically. Part of that is, no doubt, the availability of birth control, but a big part of it is the fact that parents-to-be routinely post ultrasound pictures of their little darlings on Facebook. It’s getting harder to use the “blob of cells” line when more and more of us have seen exactly what (or maybe whom?) a twenty-week fetus looks like.
Also, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, my kids’ generation is a lot less tolerant of abortion than mine was. Again, it’s partly because they have been the recipients of comprehensive sex education and don’t accept the “I didn’t know how this happened!” excuse, and because condoms can be purchased easily and without shame at their neighborhood CVS.
By the way, I listened to the analysis of this decision on NPR (note the source) and I have to say, there were elements of the Texas law that seemed a little, um, disingenuous—and none of the comments here are altering this impression. Start with the fact that this post was illustrated with an image not of a woman in distress after an abortion-gone-wrong at an unsafe clinic, but of a fetus being erased.
If it’s about the life of the fetus, why pretend that it’s about the health of the woman?
The chances of dangerous internal hemorrhage, infection, etc. are far greater for colonoscopy, yet that can be done in a doctor’s office. The chances of death in childbirth are fourteen times greater than in abortion, yet childbirth can legally be done at home.
Even if every abortion was done in a hospital, you wouldn’t approve, so—again—why pretend the problem is that the facilities aren’t safe for women, when it’s the safety of the fetus that bothers you?
Here’s a bit of irony for ya. Hillary’s response on twitter:
“SCOTUS’s decision is a victory for women in Texas and across America. Safe abortion should be a right – not just on paper, but in reality. -H”
After working outside all afternoon in the 90 degree heat my brain has turned to mush and the logic of the pelvic left is now clear to me. All these mothers are going to the abortuary to kill their babies. Why in the world do they need medical help – they are trying to end life, not save it. I must agree that this law is an “undue burden” to stop this slaughter. I’ll bet ISIS and every serial killer alive is looking for this type of relief from the “undue burden” that exists in our society to allow them to slaughter innocent life.
Herself called this a victory for women.
She was silent on the slaughter of the innocent.
On NPR, they did say that the next battleground will focus on procedures that cause pain to the fetus. That, to me, is a far more important and honest line to follow. Pro-choicers need to be asked to defend inflicting suffering that wouldn’t pass muster with PETA.
Ironically, the very next piece on “All Things Considered” was about the Purdue chicken people who are attempting to improve the quality life and death for their chickens into line with the tender sensibilities of millenials…
Why do we pretend this is not a straight forward application of state police powers beyond the reach of Federal Courts? I didn’t invent the rules. I don’t know why we follow them when the courts just change them on the occasion we actually win
I agree—but that isn’t how the OP was illustrated or (for the most part) responded to either.
Does it make sense (strategic sense? legal sense?) to present the Texas law as one designed to ensure that women who experience complications from abortion receive prompt medical treatment if, in fact, the intention was precisely that large numbers of abortion facilities would be forced to shut down and fewer abortions would be performed.
This strikes me as, simply, a transparent lie. Everyone knew what the Texas law was really about—all of you obviously did, as did the editors—and to pretend otherwise is to insult the intelligence of a public that remains mostly, if ambivalently, pro-choice.
Murderesses gonna murder.
This is an interesting thought.
Kate,
Gosnell was a butcher. I don’t think the women were safe. You can tell yourself anything you’d like about my motivations. I doubt you know much about orthodox Jewish law at least 1,500 years old. I do know what people who have a eugenic mentality are like. If they are under constant supervision it might go OK. Take the supervision away and the abuse will start.
Regards,
Jim
Was this directed only at the likes of Gosnell? Would you be content if abortions in Texas were safe for the women involved, even if the babies ended up dead either way?
Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that if the Texas law was drafted with the intention of limiting access to abortion, was challenged by pro-abortion activists on the grounds that it limited access to abortion, and was declared (?) unconstitutional by SCOTUS because it limited access to abortion, it’s …a duck.
This is a problem IMHO. There is more than enough cynicism already about the motives of pro-life activists and politicians, and it seems dumb to feed that cynicism, particularly when there are good, solid, moral and straightforward reasons to encourage limits to or even the end of abortion.
Was that the idea? That having closer medical supervision of abortion facilities would help to limit the potential for eugenic abuse of abortion rather than limiting abortion itself?
Kate,
Isn’t this a paranoid argument. The issue is safety standards for abortion clinics. I’ve always heard that abortion is much more dangerous than birth statistically. Are you sure that the politics isn’t on the other side on this?
The left continues to imagine a divine right to abort. As we are talking late term and modern medicine makes all late term babies viable, what about postnatal abortion. How about a week or a month or 3 months grace period? If she doesn’t want the child she can have it destroyed.
Let’s not get emotional.
Regards,
Jim
Incidentally, I don’t approve of the SCOTUS decision, either. This strikes me as yet another case in which the states (and the people thereof) should have the power and responsibility for making laws.
Enforcing laws that have no chance of being upheld in courts is about as egregious as prosecutorial abuse gets. I want no part of it.
If the issue is safety standards for abortion clinics, why is the O.P. illustrated with a picture of a fetus? The fetus’ safety is not in question at an abortion clinic.
“I’ve always heard that abortion is much more dangerous than birth statistically.” You are misinformed; having an abortion is far safer than having a baby. (Or at least, having a baby is risker up until the point when when “having an abortion” is, in fact, having a freshly-killed baby, whereupon perinatal risks might just even out?)
Those of us who have had babies are reasonably glad to have risked all the interesting medical adventures involved in bringing our beloved offspring into the world, but even the luckiest could give you an earful about what was involved.
Which is to say that I think it’s unwise for “efforts to restrict abortion to focus on the health and safety of the mother rather than the life of the fetus.” It’s too easy to prove that an early d & c (let alone swallowing two pills and having what amounts to a heavy period) simply doesn’t compare, maternal-health-and-safety-wise, to pregnancy and delivery.
The only real argument in favor of ending abortion is that a baby dies. Surely that’s sufficient?
The Texas law was created to raise the health standards in these abortion facilities. I don’t know if any were Gosnell-like but my understanding is that they weren’t up to the minimum of health standards that you would want for such procedures to be performed on young women. From one article:
“Today’s abortion clinics are the true ‘back alleys’ of abortion mythology,” said Denise Burke, vice president of legal affairs at Americans United for Life. “They consistently operate in the ‘red light district’ of American medicine where the problem of substandard abortion providers is longstanding and pervasive. The fight against this public health crisis will continue, despite today’s ruling.”
By the way, they got Al Capone for Federal tax evasion.
Kate, I chose and posted the picture. To be honest, it wasn’t a particularly well-chosen illustration.
I feel I need to clear some things up, 1st trimester abortions are pretty safe, the baby is quite small and is easily sucked out of the mothers womb, the majority of abortions in this country are done in the first trimester. FYI, I don’t think this is right and abortion does have psychological ramifications for a lot of women going forward, but not all.
Second trimester are still relatively safe but as the baby is bigger th procedure is more intensive. Instead of with the first trimester where they just suck the baby out in one go usually, the second trimester usually uses a D&E procedure where they tear the baby apart in the womb and count the body parts to determine that the procedure is finished. (Quite graphic but I don’t want to sugar coat it)
third trimester abortions are usually much riskier. This video will give the details to why