July 5, 2013

"Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill Friday requiring... women seeking abortions to get ultrasounds and... doctors providing [abortions] to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles."

"The law's critics call the ultrasound provision an unnecessary infringement on the doctor-patient relationship but do not plan to challenge it in court at this time."

Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services filed [a] lawsuit in federal court in Madison... asking the court to immediately block the law, contending [the requirement of admitting privileges] violates the constitution's due process guarantee, puts an undue burden on a woman's right to choose abortion and unconstitutionally treats doctors who perform abortions differently than doctors who perform other services....

The bill's proponents have said the law was aimed at providing the best available health care, but [Teri Huyck, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin] said it would make women less safe by making abortion less accessible. Women in northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula already have to drive hours to get to the Appleton clinic but would have to go even farther if that clinic closed, she said.

51 comments:

Kevin said...

In the age of Obamacare, is there any such thing as "an unnecessary infringement on the doctor-patient relationship?"

Lefties are going to find out that once you invite government in, it doesn't always do with the privilege the stuff you like.

Saint Croix said...

The law's critics call the ultrasound provision an unnecessary infringement on the doctor-patient relationship but do not plan to challenge it in court at this time.

They would get obliterated, that's why. 99% of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics do ultrasounds as a routine part of abortion surgery. So this bill is requiring Planned Parenthood

1) to do what you do already

and

2) to share the ultrasound with your patient

Of course it's #2 that is the real objection. Calling an ultrasound "rape" is just something for the media.

garage mahal said...

Signs the bill on a Friday holiday week, away from the cameras and questions. That's the "courage" Walker likes to brag about.

Gahrie said...

Apparently, if women want to have an abortion in an unhygenic abortion mill, and risk their lives as they kill their children (as self inflicted punishment?)they should have that choice.

Saint Croix said...

The feminist argument that an ultrasound is rape has always trivialized rape. It's ugly and dishonest. Who's the rapist? The abortion doctor?

garage mahal said...

Chaos and lawsuits. The Walker Way. Let everyone else clean up the messes left behind.

Jquip said...

I'm rather ambivalent about this. If we presume, for firearms, that providers must be licensed, have submitting rights for documentation, take steps to validate informed consent of the consequences, and have cooldown periods to prevent hasty deicisions?

Then this must be valid for the exercise of all individual rights. Be it speech, commerce, or abortion.

Gahrie said...

Chaos and lawsuits. The Walker Way. Let everyone else clean up the messes left behind.

Given the actions of the pro and anti Walker forces, and the state of the Capitol after they left their protests, that is a most ironic comment.

Saint Croix said...

Planned Parenthood routinely do ultrasounds as part of abortion. Why? I think because of this case. That's what can happen when you fail to do an ultrasound.

Abortion is a difficult medical procedure because it's a blind procedure. You can't see what you're doing as you do it.

So you use an ultrasound. Either before the pregnancy (to see how old the baby is) or after the pregnancy (to make sure you've removed all the tissue).

So that's why the Planned Parenthood lawyers will not be suing over the ultrasound. Ultrasounds increase patient safety and (if you share the ultrasound with your patient) patient knowledge.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...
Chaos and lawsuits. The Walker Way


There are actually no lawsuits on this matter, dum-dum.

edutcher said...

I think the criticism of the law is valid, but why pro-"woman" types would object (and they will) to the butcher having privileges at a nearby hospital can only be because the health of the woman is not the point.

The point is a dead baby.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...
Signs the bill on a Friday holiday week, away from the cameras and questions


Is that kind of like your assistant Secretary of the Treasury announce in a blog posting that the employer mandate provision of ObamaCare is "delayed" for a year at 4:30 pm on July 3?

Saint Croix said...

Then this must be valid for the exercise of all individual rights. Be it speech, commerce, or abortion.

Maybe that's why the Framers of our Constitution weren't stupid enough to think that risky medical surgery was just like speech.

Saint Croix said...

it would make women less safe by making abortion less accessible. Women in northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula already have to drive hours to get to the Appleton clinic but would have to go even farther if that clinic closed, she said.

And everybody knows that pregnant women driving cars are a risk to humanity.

Ambrose said...

No good laws get signed on Friday, July 5.

RiverRat said...

Good for him. A Centrist rational approach like this works of 60% plus of Americans. It's only the the fringes on both sides being shut out...thank god or nature.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
garage mahal said...

There are actually no lawsuits on this matter, dum-dum.

Next time you may want to do more than read the title of the post before you open your bug yap.

n.n said...

A human life developing in the mother's womb does not have the right to infringe upon her right to privacy.

As for making abortion inaccessible, that is the goal, right? What, exactly, do they considered to be moral planned parenthood? Perhaps Planned Parenthood is an oxymoron and should be subject to greater scrutiny and regulation.

Anyway, I thought abortion was presented as an interim "solution" by people without any solutions to offer to women who were promised gratification without consequences. Similar to redistributive change but with recycled human lives.

Saint Croix said...

Why is it that abortion clinics can't get better doctors? Is it that hard to get hospital privileges?

Go back to school! Study for the test! You can do it, abortion docs!

This reminds me of Justice Kennedy (Ivy League) who criticizes Dr. Carhart for his lack of credentials.

The person challenging Nebraska’s law is Dr. Leroy Carhart, a physician who received his medical degree from Hahnemann Hospital and University in 1973. Dr. Carhart performs the procedures in a clinic in Nebraska, and will also travel to Ohio to perform abortions there. Dr. Carhart has no specialty certifications in a field related to childbirth or abortion and lacks admitting privileges at any hospital. He performs abortions throughout pregnancy, including when he is unsure whether the fetus is viable.

RiverRat said...

The law's critics call the ultrasound provision an unnecessary infringement on the doctor-patient relationship but do not plan to challenge it in court at this time.

They would get obliterated, that's why. 99% of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics do ultrasounds as a routine part of abortion surgery. So this bill is requiring Planned Parenthood

1) to do what you do already

and

2) to share the ultrasound with your patient

Of course it's #2 that is the real objection. Calling an ultrasound "rape" is just something for the media.

7/5/13, 9:29 PM


and how the hell do know what's necessary. Every had a colonoscopy in a "certified surgical center to cut some polyps out of your ass. Don't women deserve the same? BTW, I'm pro-abortion in the 1st 20 weeks.\

Brian Brown said...

"When women don't have access to safe, legal abortions, there are health consequences and women die," said Teri Huyck, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA

I bet!

n.n said...

Saint Croix:

Gosnell's clinic of freaks and horrors informed us that abortion doctors are only required to maintain a plumbing license. You know, to keep the toilet clear for convenient disposal of "clumps of tissue" formerly ordered as a human life (without a name -- which is also convenient).

Brian Brown said...

This:

"The law's critics call the ultrasound provision an unnecessary infringement on the doctor-patient relationship but do not plan to challenge it in court at this time."

Is deleted from the original story.

huh.

Brian Brown said...

Women are just dropping dead from pregnancy all over America!

Thank goodness that abortion is saving them!

Jquip said...

Saint Croix: "Maybe that's why the Framers of our Constitution weren't stupid enough to think that risky medical surgery was just like speech."

Memory says that Benjamin Rush argued that medicine, or seeking it anyways, was an individual Right. But that this point was not considered, by others, so devoutly necessary to maintaining the Republic as warrant being mentioned in the Bill of Rights. My memory might be terribly wrong there, however. So, caveat reader.

Don't know if that matters to your response at all or not. But possibly fun trivia to look up in any case.

Roger J. said...

God--these abortion posts are almost as bad same sex marriage--when will the madness end

Saint Croix said...

Have you noticed it's almost never women suing over abortion? Roe v. Wade, of course, had a non-pregnant woman plaintiff. And Planned Parenthood v. Danforth involved a father who had (presumably) already lost his child. But at least those were citizen lawsuits!

For the last 30 years, all our abortion lawsuits involve the abortion industry. Planned Parenthood is a billion dollar "non-profit" (ha!) who is constantly suing because it doesn't want to spend money on patient health.

You'd think liberals would wise up and see the financial corruption at play here. Why can't we regulate an industry for patient's health?

Imagine the Supreme Court deregulating any other industry. For instance, in one notorious opinion the Supreme Court said that states could not limit the amount of hours that people work in a bakery. Liberals jumped up and down and were furious about Lochner v. New York. Why? Because liberals think we should be able to protect the health and safety of workers.

But we’re not allowed to protect the health and safety of women? Abortion is invasive medical surgery! It’s far more dangerous than working in a bakery. A woman could die on the operating table. The surgeon could accidentally make her sterile. Lots of bad things can happen in a surgery, which is why we impose health regulations on the practice of medicine.

Yet in Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, the Supreme Court throws out a safety regulation. Why? Because safety is expensive, and we want abortion to be cheap!

Justice Powell writes, “a second trimester abortion costs more than twice as much in a hospital as in a clinic.” Yes, that’s because a hospital is where all the life-saving equipment is. But the Akron Court is not actually concerned with human life. The Akron Court is thinking about saving money. The Court writes that an “in-hospital abortion costs $850-$900, whereas a dilation-and-evacuation (D&E) abortion in a clinic costs $350-$400.”

Yes, clinics are cheaper than hospitals. And hospitals are safer than clinics. Even if you want to say the Constitution requires abortions, it seems rather insane to say the Constitution requires cheap abortions rather than safe ones. The Akron Court seems to have an obsession with keeping abortion as cheap as possible. The Court is dictating a cost-cutting rule, and insisting that the Constitution requires us to save $500 by keeping abortions in clinics.

In Akron the Court is deciding that money is more important than the safety of an abortion procedure. And this so-called constitutional rule is being forced upon us by an unelected branch of our government. We realize how obscene this is when we read, 17 years later, about all the actual dangers of the D&E abortion. The Supreme Court lists them for us in Carhart:

“sharp bone fragments passing through the cervix”

“uterine perforations caused by (the doctor’s) instruments”

“infection-causing fetal and placental tissue in the uterus”

“potentially fatal absorption of fetal tissue into the (bloodstream)”

All of those issues sound rather dangerous. It’s almost like you ought to be in a hospital before you have this sort of surgery!

What’s disgraceful about this is that the Supreme Court is telling us, for the first time, that the D&E is a dangerous medical procedure. This is the same Supreme Court who has been saying for 17 years that the D&E is so safe that we can’t require a hospital visit. And now we are hearing that the D&E is so dangerous, that it justifies killing a baby outside the womb.

Nathan Alexander said...

This is just a good, common-sense law.

Only an extremist could object to it.

SteveR said...

would make women less safe by making abortion less accessible


I think if there were an actual concern, that forty years after Roe v Wade, I'd have heard a legitimate explanation.

Saint Croix said...

And I am wrong, there is no father suing in Planned Parenthood v. Danforth. Which is obvious from the name of the case!

Danforth represents the state of Missouri. Planned Parenthood is suing over a regulation that a pregnant woman needs the consent of the father before she has an abortion.

The Supreme Court ruled that a father has no rights in his unborn child. And the Court made this ruling, not because a mother asked them too, but because Planned Parenthood did.

So does Planned Parenthood want people to plan their reproductive lives? (Obviously that would include conversations with the father!) Or is Planned Parenthood suing because it represents a billion dollar industry?

You can see, in the same lawsuit, Planned Parenthood trying to operate on minors without parental consent. Nice! What a nice non-profit.

Here is Planned Parenthood covering up a statutory rape.

Theranter said...

1. The usound wand barely penetrates the vag canal.
2. The canula that kills the child as it sucks it off the placenta (the NEW organ that the child n mom grew shortly after implantation) goes well up and beyond the vag, further than any penis ever could.
3. The Usound is for the "mom's" safety (cert not the baby's) as if she is further along than she "thought" (which happens quite frequently) well thst is going to require that a saline/seaweed solution be injected into the uterus to scald the baby to death, then the next day meds to mom to open the cervix and either "deliver" the child, or instruments are used to saw child apart and remove the child's remains. Including the placenta, which is attached so well to the uterine wall that that is the chief reason women hemmorage, often to their death as no true medical care is close.
4. PP loses money (most of the clinics anyhow) if they have to turn a woman that is with child away because now if an usound provides proof that the child is older than thought, they cannot perform the procedure.
5. Even under the "best" conditions (for the mom anyhow) you would shocked at the horrors that happen to many women. (by "best" conds I mean at top-notch hospitals with real surgeons, full theatre, etc.)

Big Mike said...

I read the article, and at first I thought that the "Missouri compromise" (abortion doctors do not need admitting privileges if the hospital agrees ahead of time to accept a woman who needs hospitalization following an abortion) was pretty sensible.

But then I started wondering. The article tries a very little to be even-handed -- gaining admitting privileges is hard because (yada, yada). Versus if your doctor is any good, he or she should be able to get admitting privileges so maybe Planned Parenthood isn't using qualified doctors?

The closing two paragraphs decided it for me. I think Robin Vos has a point when she argues that PP could have done more to get its doctors qualified under the assumption that it could very well pass. The PP response is to have their attorney launch into a bunch of ad hominem non sequitors. That convinces me that Ms. Vos must have the right of it.

Big Mike said...

@garage, from outside the state it surely looks like Walker is cleaning up the mess you and your fellow unionists left behind.

n.n said...

Planned Abortion factory seems to be an appropriate description of Planned Parenthood's business model and operation.

Jquip said...

Saint Croix: "... suing over a regulation that a pregnant woman needs the consent of the father before she has an abortion. "

However, consider what it would take to secure the father's consent. The mother is obvious, but who is the father?

Before going anywhere with a joint Right notion to Abortion you need to sort out a viable and Just manner to determine proper paternity. And it needs to be proper.

If we're saying that the fetus is a 'child' due all full and normal legal protections due the jurisdiction it's within: Then this construction of abortion is to state that the two interested parties may give legal grant to a third party (the doctor) to commit a justifiable homicide.

It must be homicide since we consider the fetus a proper 'person'. And it therefore it must be a justifiable case of homicide under some rubric. (Same is true of lethal self defense.)

But how do you prove the father? Before you dig in too deeply, remember that DNA evidence is exculpatory by its very nature. It cannot finger out a single individual. Mind, it's a good indicator of recent common descent.

But if we accept that as 'good enough' then the mother only need pick out any random male that's closely related enough; bigger issue in smaller communities. This is just as true if it's the putative father bringing suit for an abortion, or to prevent it.

It's a completely unworkable concept. And even if we gave it a go, general legal maneuverings could hold up resolution of the suit until long after the child is born. It's simply an unworkable concept, and so is not an exhibition of good governance.

The alternatives are for abortion to be a Right, as it is currently, or implicitly indistinguishable from one. Or to return to an era where sex out of wedlock is a crime of itself.

Without regard to any notion of a Right of Free Association with your Tender Bits, such a tapestry permits criminalizing the procreative act itself, rather than the epistemically unsolvable issue of which male successfully completed the procreative act.

That's at least a partially solvable issue and permits all manner of solutions that we don't discuss otherwise. Not least of which is that we can use DNA in an exculpatory manner. That is, if the couple is married, and the DNA does not *exclude* the husband as the father, then that's a Good Enough solution. But since the couple is married, there's little concern about inequity in responsible thereafter.



Henry said...

Only 493 comments on the last abortion post. Looks like we need another one.

I give up. In this stalemate, there's not a single principle not squandered for tactical edge.

Small-government conservatives: There's no medical reason for the government to legislate on ultrasound photos.

Big-government liberals: There's no justification for excusing abortion clinics from basic medical standards.

Big-government conservatives: Pin a poppy to your buttonhole. This muddy trench is yours.

Saint Croix said...

Honestly, people are so full of shit about abortion. When our authorities finally say, "it's infanticide," we'll have all these good Germans prattling about how they didn't know what was going on.

It's scary how bad people can be when an authority figure tells them what to do.

Deirdre Mundy said...

It's hard to get abortionists priveledges at local hospitals because the other doctors think they're untrained butchers, not real doctors.

Look- in actual cases of medical necessity (like an etopic pregnancy or severe pre-eclampsia.)a woman doesn't NEED to go to an abortion clinic at all. Her doctor does the surgery at a hospital. (Though in the case of preeclampsia, he doesn't kill the baby first. He delivers the baby early and the parents and hospital provide comfort care if the child is too small for the NICU.)

So... Abortion clinics really only handle elective abortions.

And most OBs shy away from elective abortions because the chose their specialty because they LIKE babies. And they like LIVING babies. Plus, more and more premeds have a rotation with the micropreemies. Once you've fought to save the life of a child at 24 weeks, why would you abort one?

The other thing is, doctors really hate how abortionists don't do follow-up with their patients. A good OB can give you a complete rundown of the dangers and long-term consequences of a D&C. (I got the talk after a miscarriage. The take-away--if the chunks of the placenta are passing naturally and you can emotionally handle losing them over 2-3 weeks, then it's better to avoid a D&C as it can really, really affect future pregnancies.)

Abortionists claim that their procedure has no consequences and is no big deal. They lie to patients because they know they'll never have to see them again.

So... the reputable OBs don't want to give admitting privileges to these hacks. ER docs already spend too much time dealing with 'botched abortions,' but a lot of them never make it into the news.

These laws drive clinics out of business because even pro-choice doctors believe these things should be between a woman and her OB, not a woman and some quack in a clinic.

Nichevo said...

Inga, don't you know all that? Or is the politics of it too important to you?

Saint Croix said...

I think that's exactly right, Deirdre. Abortion has been kicked out of hospitals because it's an appalling procedure at odds with the practice of medicine.

For instance, Dr. William Waddill murdered a newborn back in 1977, just like Dr. Gosnell. You can read about the horrific case here.

"I can't find the goddamn trachea!"

and

"This baby won't stop breathing!"

are notable quotes.

More on the Waddill case here.

Almost identical to the Gosnell case, and this was in 1977. Yet the media stifled this case, kept it quiet, covered it up. Local news!

As you can see here the hospital not only kicked Waddill out, they declared a moratorium on abortions in the hospital.

I believe that's one reason abortion is segregated out of hospitals. Not just to keep abortion cheap. But also because many hospitals don't want to have anything to do with the practice.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

So, how is it that Planned Parenthood had standing in Danforth but the proponents of Prop. 8 did not? Could a smarter lawyer than me respond with something more than because lefties want it. Thanks?

jr565 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jr565 said...

"I believe that's one reason abortion is segregated out of hospitals. Not just to keep abortion cheap. But also because many hospitals don't want to have anything to do with the practice."

Firrst, do no harm. Abortion flies in the face of the Hippocratic oath, since you are in fact doing deliberate harm.
And yes, you go to a doctor for a pregnancy and your doctor is prepared to show you how your growing baby is alive. Books are written about "what to expect when you're expecting" on the assumption that the baby is going to be born.

Doctors tell women not to smoke or drink, so as not to harm the development of your child.

And abortion views that developing fetus as a clump of cells to be ejected on the most flimsy pretenses.

Saint Croix said...

The other thing is, doctors really hate how abortionists don't do follow-up with their patients. A good OB can give you a complete rundown of the dangers and long-term consequences of a D&C. (I got the talk after a miscarriage. The take-away--if the chunks of the placenta are passing naturally and you can emotionally handle losing them over 2-3 weeks, then it's better to avoid a D&C as it can really, really affect future pregnancies.)

Right! It's obscene how the Supreme Court has never discussed Asherman's syndrome. It's scarring of the uterus that's almost entirely caused by the D&C.

In other words, this particularly syndrome has been inflicted on women by the practice of medicine.

We might note too that RU-486 avoids some dangers of abortion. For instance you don't have to pry open the cervix. The woman is just swallowing a pill!

That's good because abortion surgery damages the cervix. This often leads to future premature births and future miscarriages.

But all the RU-486 does is cause a miscarriage. Your body will expel the baby naturally. But you still run the risk of tissue remaining in the uterus. Which might require a D&C to clean up the mess.

And of course there's a lot of cancer researchers who are finding a link between abortion and breast cancer.

What we absolutely know is false is the meme that abortion is safer than pregnancy. Abortion is a forced miscarriage. Imagine saying that miscarriage is safer than pregnancy! And yet our non-medical authorities on the Supreme Court continue to say, over and over, that abortion is always safer than pregnancy and birth.

Yes, the social science is bad, but I think a lot of this is just plain old deceit, mixed in with shame and guilt.

Saint Croix said...

Abortion flies in the face of the Hippocratic oath, since you are in fact doing deliberate harm.

The Hippocratic Oath actually singles out abortion (and assisted suicide) and says doctors are forbidden from doing both of them.

One of the insane things about Roe v. Wade is how the Supreme Court dismantles the Hippocratic Oath.

I discuss Roe v. Wade and the Hippocratic Oath here and here.

Big Mike said...

@Deirdre and @Saint Croix, thank you for clarifying the issue of admitting privileges for the rest of us.

Saint Croix said...

So, how is it that Planned Parenthood had standing in Danforth but the proponents of Prop. 8 did not? Could a smarter lawyer than me respond with something more than because lefties want it. Thanks?

The real crazy thing was that a non-pregnant Jane Roe, with a 2-year-old daughter, still had her abortion claim heard by the Supreme Court.

There was no pregnancy in the case! It's like a woman with a pillow stuffed under her dress.

As to Danforth the abortion clinics have standing because they were the ones being regulated.

So if California passes a law requiring all churches to perform gay marriages, the churches would clearly have standing to sue. (Since, like abortion clinics, they are the ones who will be punished for violating the law).

A better comparison is probably establishment clause cases. Often nobody should have standing in those cases, because the injury is entirely metaphysical speech wounds.

But liberals want to find standing in those cases. So they will often say, "okay, you're a taxpayer, so you have standing to sue about how your taxes are being used."

And of course that's a crock, because taxpayers don't have a right to sue over that. Imagine the courts clogged with lawsuits by people pissed off about government spending!

Theranter said...

I am still haunted by this one--last year, major city, full theatre OR run by renowned hosp. Late term abortion for viable, but conjoined at the legs, twins. (hence narcissistic ma does not want them). Doc wrangles those babes out of their womb. Oops! Usound el-wrongo! Sibs were NOT conjoined. 4 perfect lil separate legs (no longer conjoined to their respective bodies either!)
First thought: are they going to tell the woman? Pretty paternalistic if not.
Second thought: Hell no they won't tell her, can you imagine the liability? Mega lawsuit from manfac of machine on up to and incl'g surgeon.
Third thought: the amazing power of accomodation in the face of cog-disso and great fear; "ho would have been a bad mom anyhow."

machine said...

Arm the babies...so they may stand their ground.

Mel said...

Morally, I am opposed to abortion because it's obviously the taking of an innocent human life.
Practically, I know that it's legal and it's not going to go away because people are fundamentally selfish and it's the easiest way to solve what is perceived to be a problem.
Professionally, I've been surprised to find out since the Gosnell trial that abortion clinics aren't regulated by the Joint Commission on Healthcare like other outpatient surgery centers are. Whatever else abortion is, it is definitely outpatient surgery. If abortion is about "women's health" then certainly all abortion clinics should have to be Joint Commission accredited? That seems to be what Texas and Wisconsin are asking for here. (Not accreditation, but the ability to be accredited.) Surely we care enough about a woman's "right to choose" to make sure that the facility she chooses for her abortion is as safe as the one she chooses for her delivery?