"...one that has the potential to affect millions of women and to revise the constitutional principles governing abortion rights,"
writes Adam Liptak in the NYT.
The court’s decision will probably arrive in late June, as the presidential campaign enters its final stretch, thrusting the divisive issue of abortion to the forefront of public debate. Other major rulings — on affirmative action, public unions, contraception coverage and possibly immigration — are also expected to land around then.
But it is the new abortion case, however it is decided, that is likely to produce the term’s most consequential and legally significant decision....
The constitutional law doctrine, from 1992, forbids the state from imposing "unnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion." Given the personnel on the Court, it doesn't seem likely at all that the doctrine will change, only that it might be somewhat hard to apply the doctrine to the regulations the state came up with:
The case concerns two parts of a state law that imposes strict requirements on abortion providers.... One part of the law requires all clinics in the state to meet the standards for “ambulatory surgical centers,” including regulations concerning buildings, equipment and staffing. The other requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Officials in Texas said that the contested provisions were needed to protect women’s health. Abortion providers responded that the regulations were expensive, unnecessary and intended to put many of them out of business....
Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which brought the Texas challenge, said officials in Texas had used “deceptive laws and regulatory red tape” to block access to abortion.... “There would be no licensed abortion facilities west of San Antonio,” the challengers’ brief said. The only clinic south of San Antonio, in McAllen, it added, would have “extremely limited capacity.”
I predict that the Supreme Court see an undue burden here. Isn't the law really, mostly a way to deter women from having abortions? It will be interesting to be pushed into thinking about abortion more than usual in the coming election year. Whether the abortion case is the "most consequential" case — more than "affirmative action, public unions, contraception coverage and possibly immigration" — it fits in a set of issues that are politically hot and that drive a wedge in a place that makes it hard for Republicans to keep people like me who can be won over on economic and security issues. And so, I'd say that Democrats should be happy about the line-up of politically hot cases in the Supreme Court.
Posts
72 comments:
"Whether the abortion case is the "most consequential" than "affirmative action, public unions, contraception coverage and possibly immigration," it fits in a set of issues that are politically hot and that drive a wedge in a place that makes it hard for Republicans to keep people like me who can be won over on economic and security issues."
So: Abortion more important than security and the economy.
So: Public unions more important than security and the economy.
So: Contraception Coverage more important than security and the economy.
Okay.
Priorities.
I am Laslo.
If only ISIS had access to things like Abortion, Public unions and Contraception Coverage things like Paris yesterday would never happen.
I am Laslo.
Why can't the abortion crowd get some money together--their pockets are deep--and open facilities that meet the standard in various underserved places?
Why can't women who want abortions make arrangements to be driven a few hours to where they need to be? People do this all the time in Texas. It's a big place and a lot of it is remote.
Why isn't it an seen as an attack on women to allow shady underregulated places to endanger their health?
Once again, the left decides it is okay to sacrifice the occasional life of a woman undergoing an abortion in a storefront abortion emporium accepting the risk letting that patient bleed to death during the abortion procedure. Sounds like the proverbial "death panel" of one making rules that a few deaths here and there are a small price to pay for the "cause." The Islamic Caliphate would be proud of that logic. Don't want to adversely affect the sale of baby body parts now do we? I wonder if they could harvest the organs of the dying woman for liver, kidney's etc. while they are at it. Planned Parent should go public on the stock market.
Ah heck Ann, why have medical qualifications and experience be a part of abortions. After all you're only removing a bit of tissue, and any butcher can do it.
But again, for many gyno-Americans, access to abortion is the single political issue. Not that the individual gyno-American may ever actually have an abortion, but the thought that she could have one if she wanted one is the highest goal of all.
Whether the abortion case is the "most consequential" than "affirmative action, public unions, contraception coverage and possibly immigration," it fits in a set of issues that are politically hot and that drive a wedge in a place that makes it hard for Republicans to keep people like me who can be won over on economic and security issues
Repeal the 19th Amendment.
The case concerns two parts of a state law that imposes strict requirements on abortion providers.... One part of the law requires all clinics in the state to meet the standards for “ambulatory surgical centers,” including regulations concerning buildings, equipment and staffing. The other requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. Officials in Texas said that the contested provisions were needed to protect women’s health. Abortion providers responded that the regulations were expensive, unnecessary and intended to put many of them out of business....
Remember - it's OK for the Obama-Care Gruber-Pelosi Paul Krugman economic theory to burden small insurance companies out of business. We don't want to burden the abortionists in any way.
Late term abortions, especially. Gosnellian clinics and PP baby part stores must remain untouched. Now maybe the Texas R's are going about this the wrong way and not paying attention to national timing, mood and media-driven optics. Isn't it too late anyway? Win or lose at the supreme court -and I agree it will probably lose -- How does that matter? If it's already a bad deal, then jump on the media meme now. Why wait?
Mood is everything. Spite and optics are king.
Considering the Texas R's have already departed the port, isn't it time to support Hillary? Meade and Ann for Hillary. I don't care, but lets get this out of the way now.
Other major rulings...
Affirmative action: Ripe for media hack job. You racists.
Public unions: Don't touch the angelic public unions. Pay no attention to the unbalanced proportions, waste, fraud, and private sector beat-down. Pay-up, tax payers. EPA needs new furniture.
Contraception coverage: Pay up, tax payers. You too, Catholic nuns.
Immigration: If you don't agree with Obama's unfettered illegal immigration, again, you are a racist.
*Trying to get ahead of the media.
"...it fits in a set of issues that are politically hot and that drive a wedge in a place that makes it hard for Republicans to keep people like me who can be won over on economic and security issues."
Wow.
Shorter Adam Liptak: Don't worry mates, we've got the pro-democrat anti-republican beat-down meme in the queue.
We ignore Hillary's crimes and know darn well that if any R had done half of it, they would be toast.
I am pleased to see AA gets the standard libertarian argument about burdensome regulation at long last, and how it can be and is abused. Because she was on the opposite side with legal pot in Ohio, saying that the business needed regulation amounting to control. These regulations are restriction by a prettier name. Uber anyone?
I don't know how this case case will come out, but whichever way it does, it will be cited by one side or the other in the next gun-control case concerning limitations on 2nd Amendment rights.
I agree with AA's analysis. The gop picks stupid fights and the democrats demagogue them skillfully. If only the dems could get a Koch industries gay abortion safe zone case on the court's calendar they''d be a lock in 2016.
The Supremes will rule for/against the plaintiff on narrow grounds, with a narrow margin, leaving open the narrow possibility of the case being brought again sometime in the future.
Millions of rejected babies are shaking in the womb, as the 5 Philosopher Kings craft their death warrant. Not that it will matter once Planned Parenthood gets a highest bid.
What if, like Jim Geraghty thinks, we are at Peak Leftism ?
What if the left has had all it is going to get for a generation?
Abortions are surgical operations that are encouraged and permitted to 13 year olds without parental permission or even knowledge. Every other surgical operation done in an outpatient setting is required to meet standards similar to this in the Texas law.
At the heart of the collective liberal angst over the pesky burden of free speech is the nagging perception that they have lost the argument. There is no great progressive era about to dawn; we may never see a more liberal presidential administration than this in our lifetimes. While the dangerous impulse to silence their critics is merely sad in fully-formed adults, it is terrifying to witness in the generation just coming of age. When asked if he had built for ensuing generations of Americans a republic or a monarchy, Dr. Benjamin Franklin was said to quip “A Republic, if you can keep it.” That is a proposition set to be tested like never before.
Maybe by June, the existential crisis with Islam will be apparent in Europe and may be even here, Maybe "safe spaces" will require more than play dough and videos of puppies playing. I think the gun sales, which have been higher in October than any other month in history, will spike even higher as the need for self defense becomes ever more obvious.
Colleges maybe imploding.
In fact, radical leftists are taking over colleges and universities just as the higher education bubble is bursting. What’s the point of controlling the world’s most distinguished schools at the precise moment many Americans decide they’re not worth the debt to attend them?
Gosh, what if reality is about to dawn ? You know, The Gods of the Copybook Headings. That was written in 1919. Significant ?
Pre-killing babies so future terrorists won't have to.
I predict that the Supreme Court see an undue burden here. Isn't the law really, mostly a way to deter women from having abortions?
@Althouse, women have died because abortions have gone wrong and the clinics were not configured to let gurneys be maneuvered through the halls. If the abortion goes wrong -- as once in a while it will -- do the doctors need admitting privileges? If not then I think reasonable people can find a reasonable compromise. But abortions need to be SAFE. Sorry about yelling, but you seem to have bought the notion that abortions have no risk. Confronted with my statement you will push back hard, because at an intellectual level of course you understand that there is risk. But deep down inside you think it's about the same as having a wart removed.
Pre-killing babies so future terrorists won't have to.
As Julian Simon would tell you, some of those babies are future terrorists.
I liked Julian Simon.
Finding that these laws are basically a way to make it harder to get an abortion would be a rare bit of political realism from the Supreme Court. I would love to see similar realism when it comes to firearms regulation and myriad other regulations (Uber, Fanduel, ...).
"I predict that the Supreme Court see an undue burden here"
They may "see" that, but where does the, you know, Constitution say that?
Women have been sold this bill of goods that equality requires legal abortion. But look at the local and state governments that are now G.O.P. Is the Democratic Party aborting its future voters? And can the party depend on those who are out reproducing us to share our liberal values?
Abortion statistically is a less than one-in-a-lifetime event for the average woman in the United States.
It is never an emergency.
It's entirely likely that the higher standards will prevent women's death and injury, if only on a small scale, at the cost of inconveniencing a woman once in her life.
This is the hill they want to defend?
Seems that the cultural Marxists want to regulate everything except the abortion industry.
Yet most people polled on the abortion issue state they are either pro-life or in favor of stronger regulations. This case will give the Republican candidate an opening to talk about abortion in a way that most people relate to and agree with.
The abortionists do not care about medical standards so long as the can kill the children of undesirables. I am sure they would allow PP to use coathangers, if it didn't damage the harvest of baby parts.
I know a woman who is from a born-again Christian family and she claims to or at least due to her extended family environment wants to be a Christian which unfortunately for her conflicts with her other desire to drink and party but she had seven abortions when she was young. She got her first abortion with money provided by her oldest sister in NY when it was still illegal in other states. She shared this info with me after a night of drinking.
I have talked to young women who have had seven abortions.
So that whole argument about legalizing abortion in order to end the back-alley coat-hanger type of abortion was all total and complete BS.
Has even one pro-abort ever had even a single misgiving over Gosnell? (who is only the tip of the iceberg)
let the Holocaust of the Unborn continue unimpeded! Think of all the mere inconvenience avoided! They don't make pantsuits for pregnant women!
Altbouse, since you will undoubtedly blame the Right when someone dies in one of these inferior sort of slaughterhouses you crave - dies not according to plan, a death not ordered and paid for - how will you do it?
How do you say "I wanted these places unsafe, I wanted no protection for the vulnerable, because it might have SLOWED THEM DOWN! And it's ALL YOUR FAULT!!!?"
So that junior high school student whose abdominal aorta was nicked by Dr. What-Do-You-Call-The-Guy-Last-In-His-Class-In-Med-School, so what, she is acceptable losses. We had to burn her in order to save her.
What's awful painful humiliating death by septicemia, or one of the hundreds of sequelae of a "therapeutic " abortion, compared to Muffy and Biddy and Annie knowing you let Johnny touch your hoo-hah with his pee-pee? Or not snagging that hedge fund manager because you shagged the basketball team and don't know whether Junior will be a center or a point guard? Or your husband finding out?
It's a factual question is to whether these regulations are necessary or not. Some of the regulations will be upheld and others will not as the 9 update the national abortion code
"Isn't the law really, mostly a way to deter women from having abortions?"
If dirty knives and coat hangers and substandard facilities don't deter women, why would a law?
If laissez faire regulation is good for one industry, why not others?
Ann Althouse... I point you to one book, Aborting America by Dr. Bernard Nathanson. He was one of the founders of NARAL. And after presiding over 60,000 abortions, he discovered that they really were babies. Read it. See what you think.
Apparently undue regulatory burdens are only a problem when it comes to abortion as per leftists. Everything else,eff you. Thanks for clarifying that Althouse.
Yea, but what does "the internet" think about these regulations?
#AllLivesMatter is a controversial proposition because the State-established pro-choice cult rejects the moral axiom on principle. The cult avoids reconciliation of its immoral doctrines and review of its ulterior motives with opportunistic injection of tangential issues.
We can't have these regulations. If we do not allow cesspool clinics to operate unimpeded, that will just drive abortion into cesspool backrooms and then . . . oh, wait . . . Never mind.
I see the laws as preventing another Gosnell. truck in the rent-a slaughterer type facility. The fact the nineteen remain out of 32 beforehand shows the regulations mandated consistent standards and practices for the safety of the patient -mother as well. What is the bare minimum regulation that could be lawful for the abortion-rights' advocates? There was certainly no great upset from these same interests when Gosnell was discovered.
While the Court may see an undue burden here, it leaves unanswered two questions that women of common sense might want to ask themselves:
- Why are there any abortion centers that don't meet the standards for a surgical ambulatory center?
- Why would an abortion doctor not have admitting privileges at a hospital?
For any other surgical procedure out there, it would be unacceptable if those kinds of standards weren't being met.
This gets at the bigger problem that by treating any and all attempts at oversight as an attack on women, abortion activists have pretty much ensured that abortionists can cut corners with impunity if they want, which is how we end up with cases like Gosnell. That's not to say that every place is like that, only that those kinds of places can exist and flourish in an environment that discourages oversight.
Both Gosnell and Planned Parenthood placed personal and special interests ahead of women's welfare. Also, Gosnell had a Toilet of the Unknown Baby, and Planned Parenthood was torturing, killing, harvesting, and trafficking human bodies, organs, and clumps of cells.
So, the Democrats have the following record to stand on: elective abortion, planned cannibalism, selective exclusion, anti-native foreign and domestic policies, assassination of foreign regimes, undeclared coups, expanded wars, regional and global humanitarian disasters, devaluation of capital and labor through trillion dollar deficits, disparate economic progression, the CAGW "scientific" prophecy, undue fiscal, regulatory, and moral burdens on Americans.
The State-established pro-choice cult has been busy.
The same tired arguments, trotted out again by the anti-abortion crowd.
Never mind the intention of these laws is about restricting abortion, we will play act as if it was all about women's safety even when we all know that's a lie.
Mark said...
The same tired arguments, trotted out again by the anti-abortion crowd.
Never mind the intention of these laws is about restricting abortion, we will play act as if it was all about women's safety even when we all know that's a lie.
11/14/15, 11:50 AM"
So you are pro-infanticide and pro-septicemia. Anything else you wish to add to the conversation?
Mark, motivations aside, these regulations are arguably helpful and necessary for the same people whose rights you're trying to protect. I thought you wanted to keep abortion safe. This is safe. This is what safe looks like. Go make a business opportunity to open a compliant abortion clinic where you feel it's needed. Make a million dollars. Buy Lamborghinis.
Ann would tell you to stop whining. If she was feeling honest that day.
"Isn't the law really, mostly a way to deter women from having abortions?"
Nope. The law is to protect women from bleeding out due to a botched abortion.
The response from the baby-flesh harvesters has been
1) Its a simple procedure that can be performed in a strip mall, like a dentist office, and
2) Its an undue burden for us to move our operation to a closer strip mall near a hospital
As usual, you can see how full of shit these monsters are.
Abortion may be what propels a democrat into the presidency next year. (Although there are any number of issues that the GOP is on the wrong side of.) Hillary and Bill Clinton are more than likely still corrupt, but they are better than a party that is officially anti-woman, anti more than half of the population. Abortion is a woman’s choice. Period. It is no one else’s business. To not understand that is a sign of serious mental dysfunction, most likely chauvinism.
Anti-abortion folks are NOT pro-life. The Pope has made that clear. Anti-abortion folks are mostly always pro-death. They appear to love war, (they are always calling for more war) which is about killing, death and destruction. They love the death penalty which is about state sponsored killing. They show no interest in living children or what happens to them. They don’t care if children have enough to eat or have adequate medical care. They are anti-life. They are pro-gun and excuse all the murders and killings that are gun related. (which shows their hypocrisy about their feigned concern for women’s safety during abortion). There were over 32,000 gun related deaths in 2011. 32,000 deaths! That’s not pro-life. And the pro-death gun lobby fights any and all “regulations”(again exposing their hypocrisy). There were 10 abortion related deaths in 2010, out of well over 1,000,000 abortions. There were 15 deaths per 100,000 live births. Giving birth is clearly much more dangerous than abortion, neither of which comes close to gun related deaths or war.
The anti-abortion folks are anti-women. They are just not honest. That’s why you see comments about women sex’s lives and the importance of them “paying” the *consequences* of having sex for fun. Again, it’s not your call and it’s not your business.
There is no reason to doubt that compliant clinics and other providers would start up in under-served areas if the law is upheld. The fact that they are not in, say, El Paso now does not mean that they would not be there under a different legal regime.
sunsong said...
Abortion may be what propels a democrat into the presidency next year. (Although there are any number of issues that the GOP is on the wrong side of.) Hillary and Bill Clinton are more than likely still corrupt, but they are better than a party that is officially anti-woman, anti more than half of the population. Abortion is a woman’s choice. Period. It is no one else’s business. To not understand that is a sign of serious mental dysfunction, most likely chauvinism."
You are in favor of infanticide and you are calling those who are against baby killing nuts? The rest of your rant is pure delusional. A Democrat might win, the electorate is and has been roughly equal but if the democrat wins it will be largely due to the moocher class voting it's interest. Just like the last two elections. Incidentally what do Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have in common? No of them are currently subject to an FBI investigation.
… it fits in a set of issues that are politically hot and that drive a wedge in a place that makes it hard for Republicans to keep people like me who can be won over on economic and security issues.
Yes, but people like you(abortion legal under any circumstances) are a minority, hovering between 25 to 35% since 1975. We anti-abortionists wrote off folks like you years ago.
As of May, 2015 it stands at 29%(legal under any circumstances), 51%(legal only under certain circumstances), 19%(illegal in all circumstances). That works out to be 70% who are either somewhat or totally against abortion.
The “wedge” is already there and has been there for decades. The two parties have adjusted their tactics accordingly. I do not believe he SCOTUS decision, which we know beforehand will be pro-abortion, is going to make much difference, other than galvanizing the GOP base to get out and vote for the anti-abortion candidate in greater numbers.
Yep, it’s “politically hot” for sure, but the fire will be under the GOP voters. For the Democrats it will be business as usual, another pro-abortion opinion, so commonplace as to be almost insignificant.
http://tinyurl.com/2br99el
I've always said that the left gives zero shits about women and even less to blacks. This case illustrates it.
Who, in their right mind, would want to go to some clinic with standards that of a mall ear piercing kiosk, to have some 'doctor'scrape the inside of their uterus? Where all kinds of bad things do happen - rupture, reactions to medications, possible contamination of instruments, etc....with no quick access to emergency admittance and care?
Abortion clinics make a ton of money. It would not be that hard for them to bring their chop shops up to surgical standards for the safety of their patients. But they, like the democrats they donate that money to, put that money before the health of poor black and brown women.
If a state can create an undue burden on abortion rights, would there be any impact in the 2nd Amendment area? ID to by ammunition. Video retention of purchase transaction. License to purchase and own. I see possible contradictions arising. Of course, that does not matter in a lawless society.
The Democrats are admitting that Obamacare was about increasing revenue that reduces their individual liability, not affordable and available health care. They don't respect individual dignity. They don't recognize intrinsic or exceptional value of human life. They devalued capital and labor, and imported millions of legal and illegal aliens in order to transparently compensate for economic stagnation and dysfunctional orientations.
The Democrats who are looking for salvation need to get out of the pro-choice cult that constructs politically favorable congruences, employs tactics that denigrate individual dignity, exploits strategies that debase human life, and fosters corruption through propagation of hypocrisy.
As for The Supreme Court, #CorruptionWins when parties (e.g. Posterity) can be summarily excised from a constitution as a legalized rite.
I suppose we all "know" that this law was enacted to reduce the number of abortions, not to protect the lives of the women who get abortions. We "know" that because the law was enacted by Texas, a state full of red necks, no necks, and Republicans.
If the same law had been enacted by, say, California, we would know it was a pro-woman "health" measure.
Wait a second. If I understand the point correctly the abortionists believe regulations are expensive and can unduly burden businesses.
If this is correct it could redefine our understanding of regulations.
/sarc
So what if it is a way to discourage women from having abortions. The law is also intended to protect women from being used and abused by PP.
Just in time for the Election. Yay?
I predict that the Supreme Court see an undue burden here.
One of the big problems with Casey was how fact-free the opinion was. I have the distinct impression that many of the Justices had no idea what a D&E abortion is, or the dangers involved.
Remember, in the USA we do abortions far later in the pregnancy than in Europe. Our unelected rulers adopted abortion rules that are similar to what China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union had. They had no regard for the unborn baby's life. And, perhaps surprisingly to many feminists, they had little regard for the health and safety of women. Remember that Casey had to overrule this part of Roe. Blackmun (and Brennan and Marshall) had the insane idea to strip the states of any oversight in regard to first trimester abortions. It took almost two decades for the Court to admit error here.
Since Casey two major things happened. Doctors started killing babies in the middle of birth, and Kermit Gosnell was convicted of multiple counts of murder for killing newborns in his abortion clinic.
Both of these things happened because the D&E abortion is highly dangerous to women. Gosnell, for instance, was sued when a woman died in his clinic from the D&E. So he had adopted the Supreme Court-approved practice of inducing birth. He took the added step of murdering newborns. But understand that there was a medical (and financial) reason for his abandonment of the D&E. It's a highly risky and dangerous surgery.
Consider that every Supreme Court Justice who has opined on the issue is on record disparaging the D&E abortion. So it's rather asinine that five of them continue to insist that the Constitution requires it, yes? These people are stuck pretending that the D&E is safe (rewriting history and asking us to ignore two major cases that say the opposite).
I predict that the Court will uphold these safety regulations.
@Saint Croix, it's not clear that abortionists should need admitting privileges -- it seems to me that that particular regulation gives a hospital administrator veto power over abortions anywhere near the hospital. But maybe they do need admitting privileges; I don't know enough about the ins and outs of patient admission at emergency rooms.
However I'm on board with requiring the abortion clinics to be able to handle the cases when things go wrong. To argue otherwise is to say that some small percentage of dead women is a minor price to pay to uphold Roe v. Wade. The fact that some of those pushing these regulations would like to totally ban all abortions does not, in my mind, make these bad regulations.
Dr. Warren Hern (an abortionist) has written that every abortion clinic should be five minutes from a hospital. He has hospital privileges but many abortion doctors do not.
Smart ass question for a reporter to ask Hillary:
"You and your husband have said that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. What's wrong with requiring abortion doctors to have hospital privileges, and requiring that an abortion clinic meets the standards of a surgical center? Wouldn't that make abortion safe, legal and rare?"
Unknown says:Ann Althouse... I point you to one book, Aborting America by Dr. Bernard Nathanson. He was one of the founders of NARAL. And after presiding over 60,000 abortions, he discovered that they really were babies. Read it. See what you think.
She has way too many other things to read. To read something counter to your beliefs is somethings Dems accuse Republicans of not wanting to do, but Dems like Althouse are just as close minded when they believe in something, i.e. abortion.
Parts of the law not at issue before the Supreme Court have already caused about half of the state’s 41 abortion clinics to close. If the contested provisions take effect, the challengers’ brief said, the number of clinics would again be halved.
I would like to read that brief, because this makes no damn sense to me. What part of the law caused 20 abortion clinics to close? And why isn't this part of the lawsuit?
My understanding is that they are suing over both requirements, that an abortion clinic meets the standards of a surgical center, and that the abortion doctors have hospital privileges. Is this not the case?
Also, I could have sworn the Supreme Court issued a stay and these requirements have not been enforced yet. Did they close and re-open? How many abortion clinics are now operating in Texas? Reading this article, I would say "maybe 40, maybe 20." Some kind of number that is in danger of shrinking. It's almost like it's a fact that a reporter might want to find out or something.
Shouldn't there be a way to force the court not to hear controversial cases in a Presidential election year? Regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, these are the kinds of cases that can throw elections in either direction.
Saint Croix, my anecdote is that the sole abortion clinic in the Texas city in which I live part-time closed after the law passed and has been shuttered ever since.
thanks no pants!
it's not clear that abortionists should need admitting privileges
I think that's a stronger argument. The idea that an abortion clinic should not have to qualify as a surgical center seems dubious to me (particularly if you are doing surgeries!)
Maybe admitting privileges is a proxy for "good doctor." Back in the 1970's, some states had rules that 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions had to be performed in hospitals. The Supreme Court overturned this law, on the grounds that abortions in the clinic are cheaper. There was (shockingly) no discussion of safety issues.
I hope that Carhart and Carhart II has taught our unelected rulers that abortion does involve some very serious risks. Women can die if the Supreme Court screws this up. Contrast the free hand that states have in regulating bakeries. Which is more dangerous, aborting a pregnancy or baking bread?
Here is Breyer and Ginsburg on the D&E:
With the D&E there is a possibility of "blood loss and risk of infection." There are "complications from bony fragments." There are "instrument-inflicted damage to the uterus and cervix." There is the possibility of "maternal mortality" from "DIC and amniotic fluid embolus." And there are "horrible complications arising from retained fetal parts."
It's going to be a little awkward for Ginsburg and Breyer to say there are no health issues here, and no need for abortion clinics to meet the standards of a surgical center.
You can read about the abortion doctors of Texas here.
There are allegations that Dr. Karpen has been killing newborns.
The grand jury did not indict him, so I'm not sure what happened there.
Post a Comment