Writes Adam Liptak at the NYT (in an article illustrated with a
really excellent photograph by Gabriella Demczuk).
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who almost certainly holds the crucial vote, mused that it might be useful to return the case to the lower courts to develop more evidence. He said it would help to know how many abortions could be performed in the clinics that would remain open if a restrictive Texas law was allowed to become fully effective....
Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last month may have muted the prospect of truly bold action, but even a 4-to-4 tie would have enormous consequences because it would leave in place an appeals court decision that could drive down the number of abortion clinics in Texas to about 10, from roughly 40.
Here's the analysis of the argument at SCOTUSblog:
The four more liberal members of the Court — Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor — energetically challenged the lawyer for Texas, and often did so in words that denounced what the Texas legislature could have been thinking in passing the restrictions. Justice Sotomayor was so diligent that she even went on with questions after Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., signaled that the lawyer then at the lectern was finished.
And
here's the whole transcript of the argument.
Posts
93 comments:
"He said it would help to know how many abortions could be performed in the clinics that would remain open"
So..SCOTUS needs cost/benefit analysis?
I don't see why Planned Parenthood doesn't simply change its business model and solicit funds to fly women in search of an abortion to Cuba, where abortions have been cheap and universally available for decades. Cuba is far closer to most Amerikans than is Alaska or Hawaii.
"Justice Sotomayor was so diligent that she even went on with questions after Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., signaled that the lawyer then at the lectern was finished."
At that point she's not asking questions. She's making statements.
"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who almost certainly holds the crucial vote, mused that it might be useful to return the case to the lower courts to develop more evidence."
He wants to wait until the voters speak I think.
As usual, the sole focus will be which of the right leaning justices will break ranks. No one, anywhere, ever, will question how any of the four leftists on the Court will vote. Same as it ever was.
but even a 4-to-4 tie would have enormous consequences
50% of the government lawyers will be wrong, not just 44%. Is 6% "enormous"?
jimbino said...
I don't see why Planned Parenthood doesn't simply change its business model and solicit funds to fly women in search of an abortion to Cuba, where abortions have been cheap and universally available for decades. Cuba is far closer to most Amerikans than is Alaska or Hawaii.
I love this suggestion. The left claims to believe Cuban healthcare is better than ours. I look forward to a few firsthand reports from women who don't get to visit the flagship hospital Fidel and western reporters go to.
He said it would help to know how many abortions could be performed in the clinics that would remain open if a restrictive Texas law was allowed to become fully effective....
May be knowing the largest number of abortions that could possibly be done at the clinics would help Kennedy form a decision.
Unusual criterion for determining constitutionality of a law.
"Dilegent", I don't this means what Adan pretends. Partial, would be more apt.
"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who almost certainly holds the crucial vote, mused that it might be useful to return the case to the lower courts to develop more evidence."
Any self-respecting super-legislature wants to have all the available facts before it writes a major new law.
The "final solution" must not be polling well. Abortion rites are reactionary.
And what to make of cannibalistic trials? That's where they progressed after disarming, decapitating, and disemboweling their victims.
Americans are not that progressive and are trending classical... Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. All that traditional American stuff. There is no faith in emanations from a penumbra and a religion or moral philosophy discovered in its darkest fringes.
You'd think the question "how many women were harmed by inadequate available medical facilities and standard of care" would be a more relevant question than "how many clinics that don't meet normal medical standards will be closed".
Naturally, that question will be completely avoided. It would be like investigating planned parenthood for selling baby parts instead of indicting the people who caught them discussing it on film. Which would be extremist and crazy, of course.
leftists sure love killing innocent babies.
Sharply dividing foetus parts is Planned parenthood's best skill set. So get a move on at the Supremes operating room you Hateful 8 and split some hairs. It's the least you can do.
What is it you like about that photo, Prof. A? The balloons? Or the gauntlet of opposing protesters (as if they had any effect)?
About admitting privileges. I'm not sure this isn't a red herring. ER's don't require a Dr. to admit..and I suspect they will need to admit if that's warranted. If a transfer to another hospital is requested, then a Dr. over there needs to "admit". I went through this repeatedly with my ailing father. Whatever hospital he went into ER allowed admission without any Dr. designation. In a transfer situation, most hospitals these days seem to employ in-house "hospitalists" who take over/admit anyways.
It's actually funny in a pathological kinda way. The "40 clinics would be reduced to 10" statistic is deployed as an argument *against* the law. The equally accurate statistic "75% of abortion clinics don't meet the minimal standards of care required for the practice of any other medical procedure", the main point of the law, isn't even on the radar. Neither is "why can't the clinics just come up to spec and thus ensure the 'safe' part of 'safe, legal and rare'?"
Well, it isn't 'rare', and 'safe' is being thrown out the window in order to keep it that way. I guess 'legal' is all that's left. Unexpectedly!
This is what happens when the Supreme Court gets involved in enforcing rights it makes up out of the blue. Roe v Wade was judicial arrogance. Let the people decide the issue through referendum or their elected state representatives and governors. Reagan signed a very permissive abortion law in California when he was governor in the 60s. I'm sure most states will follow his lead. Either way, it's not a constitutional right.
One requires stand-alone clinics, even those that perform only first-term abortions, to meet the standards of walk-in surgery clinics.
The American College of Surgeon's says that "Obstetrics and Gynecology" is a surgical specialty. Isn't having somebody take a scalpel to the insides of your uterus something that is outpatient surgery?
WRT the 40 mile thing. I have lived in Texas. people think nothing of driving 80-100 miles for a night out. Surely a life changing event done very rarely can be done at a distance beyond 40 miles. Hell, when i was in college, people flew overseas to have abortions.
Can we change the bumper stickers to 'Dangerous, legal, and millions every year' now?
What are the odds that the USA will ever have a Supreme Court that is honest enough to admit that the Constitution is silent on abortion, and therefore it is a matter for The People, through their elected representatives, to decide?
Such as Court is not coming soon, but is it actually impossible? Precedent is important, but not inviolable. Could a day come when a majority of the justices find themselves unable to see those emanations from the penumbras?
I thought RBG'S question to the Texas lawyer about El Paso women being recommended to go to New Mexico clinic (as theirs closed) was a pretty difficult point for Texas to handle. Seems hypocritical.
If you require all these new rules to keep women safe, why is it OK to send them to New Mexico (the effect of closing their local clinic) where these rules are not in effect?
Right at the start of his presentation he got slammed with a point he couldnt refute.
Closing abortion clinics won't end abortion. Just saying. Keep abortion safe, legal and rare.
I agree with Mark. Texas should be able to tell New Mexico to require its clinics meet minimum safety requirements.
Good call, Mark.
Who recommended the New Mexico clinic, Mark? If it wasn't the very same legislators who made the law, I fail to see any hypocrisy.
Also agree with Matt. The Texas law to require safe clinics is necessary for safety.
Hilarious that Mark still deploys 'safe, legal and rare' in the service of arguing against safety for the explicit goal of minimizing rarity.
What Qwinn said. Proabortion people seem to have no trouble raising money when it suits them but somehow it never occurs to the donors that the money should go toward improving the facilities so that they meet basic standards of medical care?
Er, sorry, Matt, not Mark.
"Closing abortion clinics won't end abortion. Just saying. Keep abortion safe, legal and rare."
Making it less convenient helps make it rare.
The abortion rate has been cut in half since @ 1991 through effective propaganda and harassment, legal and social.
Thats a lot of babies.
Advocating for abortion rites; normalizing its trials; and progressive morality will ensure that abortion may be safe (i.e. minimally corruptive), legal, and common. It guarantees the debasement of human life for wealth, pleasure, leisure, and democratic leverage. And, of course, a wholly innocent human life is terminated at a uniquely vulnerable stage in its evolution, which may be acceptable under the pro-choice religious doctrine, but it is an anathema to commonly understood concepts of human and [American] civil rights, and a first-order cause of anthropogenic government and cultural corruption.
Widespread abortion on demand presents a conundrum that the left doesn't really think about.
On the one hand, in theory, they can have free sex and avoid the old "shotgun weddings" in the past, a life of indentured misery, I reckon.
On the other hand, demographics is destiny -- if you kill off most or your offspring, you will lose future political/cultural/economic battles against your opponents, who don't kill their offspring. That's just math.
Bay Area Guy,
Yes. Hence the Left's unrelenting insistence on dominating all levels of academia. They don't want the responsibility of raising their own children, so they'll just brainwash yours.
Justice Sotomayor was so diligent that she even went on with questions after Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., signaled that the lawyer then at the lectern was finished.
"Diligent" isn't the right word for what she did.
Has there ever been a justice who's worse than Sotomayor? Who put this clown on the court?
I wonder if God will judge our nation harshly for all the unborn children killed by abortion?
Maybe He already has.
And what of future generations? Will they look upon our abortion practices with the same horror and opprobrium as we look upon the Classical Greeks for their practice of infant exposure?
Who put this clown on the court?
I'll take Barack Obama to block, Alex.
*ding*
and often did so in words that denounced what the Texas legislature could have been thinking in passing the restrictions.
Oh, is "rational basis" no longer a thing? Or do restrictions on privacy rights, I guess just when the privacy right is abortion, get a higher level of scrutiny? Lucky abortion rights, I guess--lots of my other rights can be restricted for just about any damn reason some lawyer can make up on the spot, according to the Court.
Gotta love that ignoring the time limit makes a justice "diligent," according to Liptak. Though somehow I suspect that if one of the conservative justices were to pursue his point in that way, the word Liptak chose would have been different. The Times rarely disappoints.
Look, I'm not a big fan of this tactic by abortion opponents (raise cost of what's required for the legal exercise of a right so high that it discourages that very exercise) but it's a tactic the Left uses all the time and the Court rarely has a problem with it. Want to possess a firearm for your own protection? Sure, it's legally possible to do so in DC and NYC, but the state and local laws make it very expensive and nearly impossible to legally do unless yu happen to be very well connected. Until quite recently the Court's response was something like "well, that state or locality passed a law, and the law has at least some rational basis, and the restriction isn't FULLY absolute, so the law is Constitutional." The same tactic is being used now to restrict the death penalty--groups push hard to make it difficult to get the drugs used in executions and then make sure the laws/regulations allow only those drugs, and then say effectively "hey we'll allow executions as we're legally required to do, it's just that you can't find the drugs you need and you can't follow all these other laws we've passed, so I guess you can't actually carry the executions out." There are any number of other examples.
I think it's a bad way to run a country--bad for the law, bad for the Court, but if it's a viable tactic when the Left does it you can be sure it'll be used by the Right. When the Court allows laws to restrict some fundamental rights it'll have to allow laws to restrict other fundamental rights in order to be consistent--and the Law requires at least a certain amount of consistency. To do otherwise would be to demonstrate either 1.)that the Court thinks some rights matter more than others (or some things we consider rights really aren't) or 2.)that the Court itself is engaged in something other than "calling balls & strikes" and should be treated as such (with the attendant loss of respect that should entail).
Birkel, Texas has insisted that closing the EP clinic did not put an undue burden on women (clinic too far away) as the New Mexico clinic was within a reasonable distance.
Yet that clinic does not require what Texas says is mandatory safety regulations.
Perhaps you should look into the arguments being made by Texas (and RBG'S comments) before deliberately misunderstanding the situation.
Typical for this blog. Self proclaimed expert doesn't even bother looking at transcript.
Qwinn, I'm not arguing against safety. I'm arguing against fewer abortion providers and, ultimately, no abortion providers. In a perfect world no one gets abortions. We don't live in a perfect world. Sex happens. So does changing one's mind about carrying a birth to term.
Page 29 of the Transcript, Solicitor General says:
"before this law took effect, there were approximately 65 to 70,000 abortions a year annually."
In Texas, in one year, 65-70,000 abortions. Rare indeed.
I'm just some guy (not a lawyer nor a law student) but it sure seems convenient, to me, the way the Court just happens to define "undue burden" in ways that align with their political leanings almost every time.
Being forced to purchase health "insurance" against one's will isn't an undue burden on personal privacy or autonomy, but forcing abortion clinics to meet the standards legitimately set by the legislature of a state is an undue burden. You might want to say that the Court distinguishes between "economic rights" and "personal/body rights" but I'd refer you back to their historical holdings on 2nd Amendment cases (where laws that functionally made it impossible to exercise that right in certain places were found to not "unduly burden" individuals).
I'm sure smarter people understand these things--too subtle and nuanced for me.
Matt, I'm not arguing against safety. I'm arguing against fewer firearm sellers and, ultimately, no firearm sellers. In a perfect world no one needs a firearm for self protection. We don't live in a perfect world. Self defense situations happen. So do situations where having a firearm is crucial for the ability to defend oneself and one's family.
Pro-choicers sincerely believe in the miracle of spontaneous conception.
Reactive parenthood was bad, but what of planned parenthood to recycle and reuse valuable human parts?
So, when and by whose choice does a human life acquire and retain value?
The congruence ("=" or selective exclusion) arguments are a hypocritical proposition that defy science, religion/morality, and The Constitution.
walter said... 3/2/16, 1:29 PM
So..SCOTUS needs cost/benefit analysis?
Actually, the whole point is, this was done without a cost benefit analysis, because a lot oof the legislators would rather make all or most abortions illegal, but they can't because the Supreme Court has arbitrarily made that illegal. So the "cost" is not a cost to them.
Justice Kennedy maybe wants to see how much of a cost it imposes, but what standard would he use to say the "cost" is too much?
Maybe just articulate the standard and leave it to lower courts to see what the result is. And you know they'll just come up with regulations, that, at least initially, reach that level of cost, no more and no less.
AlbertAnonymous:
A truly progressive "final solution" carried out under an authentically liberal interpretation of biological science, human rights, and The Constitution.
Mark,
I agree with you. New Mexico should bend to the will of Texas.
Why does New Mexico hate mothers who get inferior medical care when killing their fetus?
'safe, legal and rare'
The plaintiffs claim that the object of the law is to make it rare rather than to make it safe. Which, is of course, true. Safety regulations were passed without any kind of balancing against ow much that might limit the number of abortions. Because a majority of the legislature wants to limit the number of abortions. nobpdy's looking at "safety" at all. So what does the Supreme Court want to say? No safety reguklations at all be legislated? Or only those that - what - don't reduce the number performed by more than 35%, 50% what?
And the Texas attorney, at page 46 of the Transcript says (about capacity of the remaining facilities to perform abortions):
"And so if one ASC can perform 9,000 abortions annually, and there are going to be at least eight other ASCs in Texas, plus the tenth facility, the McCallen facility, that obtained as applied relief, it does not stretch credulity to believe that those remaining facilities would suffice to meet the demand for abortions."
Even leaving out McCallen, that's 9 ASC's x 9,000 abortions per year per ASC = 81,000 abortions a year capacity in just those permitted Texas facilities post-implementation.
Blogger Matt said...Closing abortion clinics won't end abortion. Just saying. Keep abortion safe, legal and rare.
Why "rare"? I know it's a nice, catchy phrase. But why do you care if it's rare?
Sammy Finkleman:
Did those legislators do cost-benefit when they required surgical centers that do apendectomies to meet minimum requirements? After all, both just remove a clump of worthless cells, right?
Until Scalia's successor is confirmed, the effect of the 4-4 tie rule is that each 3 judge Circuit Court of Appeal panel gets Scalia's vote in case of a tie, which if the panel itself is split means that that the tiebreaker on the panel is effectively a Supreme Court Justice.
Excluding senior status, the Fifth Circuit has 5 Democratic appointees and 10 Republican appointees. The Ninth Circuit has 19 Democratic appointees and 9 Republican appointees.
The tell-tale heart beating in the tomb of the unknown baby is growing ever louder.
They call this evidence, evidence that McConnell is doing the right thing.
Maybe the classification of these facilities could/should be set as "Ambulatory Surgical Centers"
"A registered nurse trained in the use of emergency equipment and in cardiopulmonary resuscitation must be available whenever a patient is in the ASC. To further protect patient safety, ASCs are also required to have an effective means of transferring patients to a hospital for additional care in the event of an emergency. Written guidelines outlining arrangements for ambulance services and transfer of medical information are mandatory. An ASC must have a written transfer agreement with a local hospital, or all physicians performing surgery in the ASC must have admitting privileges at the designated hospital. Although these safeguards are in place, hospital admissions as a result of complications following ambulatory surgery are rare.5 "
http://www.ascassociation.org/advancingsurgicalcare/aboutascs/industryoverview/apositivetrendinhealthcare
Finally got around to seeing Gattaca (1997) the other night. Best looking movie I've ever seen, bar none. But it plateaued way too soon. And it was maybe 20 or so minutes too long. Okay, you have to scrape yourself undetectably clean, yet again. Okay. We get it.
Eugenics.
That is all.
Eugenics.
If these abortions are a routine medical procedure that can be done in a strip mall office, how is it an undue burden to relocate these offices closer to hospitals with emergency care?
I still would like more clarity regarding admitting privileges requirement since it doesn't seem to comport with how current ERs/Hospitals work.
Some democracies require a term in the military service. Perhaps if for judgeships a required three days assisting at an abortion mill complete with the responsibility of disposal there would be a different viewpoint of what judges rulings actually bring about.
It isn't a viewpoint one should angrily argue for. If argued for it should be in respect for those torn by their choices with an understanding of the difficulties of their decision. Not that some seem to manage it flippantly.
With no deciding vote, they may have to cut the fetus in half.
Here's a question, just for fun: the general agreement is that meeting the ASC standards would be cost-prohibitive. Say it adds 50% to the cost. Is there some price point that an abortion must be available at to be deemed "not an undue burden"? Heck, what if the state just taxed abortion services at 50%. Would this be unconstitutional?
Char Char Binks:
Solomon's rule. Unfortunately, neither the mother nor the judge are opposed to vivisecting the baby, especially when it is planned and its parts fill a need. Half of the baby's parts are sequestered for hazardous waste disposal, while the other half is harvested, trafficked, and cannibalized as a down payment to purchase an exotic sports car, and to meet the demands of a progressively corrupt liberal society.
And what to make of cannibalistic trials? That's where they progressed after disarming, decapitating, and disemboweling their victims.
The Green Inferno was kewl man.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who almost certainly holds the crucial vote, mused that it might be useful to return the case to the lower courts to develop more evidence. He said it would help to know how many abortions could be performed in the clinics that would remain open if a restrictive Texas law was allowed to become fully effective....
Then he can just compare that number to the number specified in the Constitution to determine if the law is constitutional. Brilliant!
@ n. n.
Cut the baby in half, just like the Good Book says!
Alex:
A group of [green] student activists travels to the Amazon to save the rain forest and soon discover that they are not alone, and that no good deed goes unpunished.
Art imitates life. Moral of the story: disarming is a pretense.
Also tasty and naive are an invitation to a short and tortured life.
Until Scalia's successor is confirmed, the effect of the 4-4 tie rule is that each 3 judge Circuit Court of Appeal panel gets Scalia's vote in case of a tie, which if the panel itself is split means that that the tiebreaker on the panel is effectively a Supreme Court Justice.
As I understand it the decision won't count as a precedent in that case. Once the next justice is sworn in the court is likely to hear a similar case and make the "real" decision.
Question:
If the SC says it's unconstitutional to impose regulations on abortion clinics, why is it ok to impose regulations on OTHER outpatient medical clinics?
I mean, aren't you discriminating unfairly then?
Matt, I'm not arguing against safety. I'm arguing against fewer firearm sellers and, ultimately, no firearm sellers. In a perfect world no one needs a firearm for self protection. We don't live in a perfect world. Self defense situations happen. So do situations where having a firearm is crucial for the ability to defend oneself and one's family.
^ That one is actually IN the Constitution.
Char Char Binks:
The "Good Book" is a cookbook filled with historical recipes of how to prepare and serve tasty babies and disarmed adults. Unfortunately, most people miss the disclaimer and voluntarily jump into the pot, often head first.
Walter,
The difference between what you have experienced with hospitals/ERs is that the hospitalists are not surgeons. They are admitting patients for medical illnesses, not surgical complications.
When a doctor performs a procedure as an outpatient that is invasive with complications that require surgical intervention to correct, they generally have to have admitting privileges at the nearby hospital. So, if you see an ENT to have tubes put in your ears at an outpatient facility, that ENT is usually also required to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital in case things go bad. Same with plastic surgeons.
Judge Harry Blackmun's ruling created a rather large, bloody mess.
>Videos of the meat market sales force. Want some fries with that cranium?
>Ultrasounds and beating hearts of what's affectionately known as a fetus.
>The conundrum of a double murder charge when the victim is pregnant.
>Safe, legal and ..... rare? 50+ million to date.
Funny that Kennedy wants to demand the case back to a lower court to gather more facts when SCOTUS is granted the power to determine the facts of any case by the Constitution. Why don't you send him a reminder, Althouse?
Hoodlum Doodlum, Judge Johnny says he just calls the balls and strikes. He also determines the zone, doesn't he? Rendering his modesty into complete bullshit.
Deidra @ 6:01 PM
Thank you. That the Texas law is about licensing requirements for a service facility was rolling around in my head, knocking up against the Libertarian principle of minimal government regulation.
Next we will have SCOTUS deciding how combs must be sanitized between customers in a barber shop.
Sydney,
Yeah..I guess if the crisis happensin the facility, that;s the difference.
But..
It seems ASCs are required to have physicians with admitting privileges..OR..an established arrangement with a hospital.
I haven't heard of that second option in these proposals.
Sotomayor is a political activist, not a judge. She should be impeached.
Qwinn said... "It's actually funny in a pathological kinda way. The "40 clinics would be reduced to 10" statistic is deployed as an argument *against* the law. The equally accurate statistic "75% of abortion clinics don't meet the minimal standards of care required for the practice of any other medical procedure", the main point of the law, isn't even on the radar. Neither is "why can't the clinics just come up to spec and thus ensure the 'safe' part of 'safe, legal and rare'?"
All fantastic points. Thank you, thank you! If everyone only knew how many women are enticed into thinking the procedure and the clinic are safe, just "a walk in the park" (for them, for their child not so much) when in reality complications are unacceptably frequent--many would support a higher standard of regs for both the procedure and the clinic. It's ludicrous that they don't have to meet ambulatory clinic standards, and equally ludicrous that your last question wasn't asked. (It has been addressed in discussions, and they say it "too costly." Maybe they should use some of the tens (if not hundreds) of millions they are about to spend lobbying and campaigning against the R candidate over the next eight months!)
As for all the comments on Sotomayor, couldn't agree more--she's a National embarrassment, and belongs in a small county court.
I still would like more clarity regarding admitting privileges requirement since it doesn't seem to comport with how current ERs/Hospitals work.
You might google Dr. Warren Hern. Late-term abortionist, very controversial. But he's also highly critical of the abortion industry's safety record. He believes every abortion clinic should be within five miles of a full service hospital.
Because of politics, the hazards of abortion to women are constantly downplayed. This particular case is brutal on liberals because they are fighting for cheap abortions, and they are striking down safety regulations to protect women. Very, very corrupt stuff, that's why they want the unelected branch to do the dirty work.
(The abortion doctor who is featured in that NYT article was actually guilty of multiple sexual assaults. See this and this).
I heard this story on NPR today.
I wonder if the NARAL types realize how they sound when they say that there aren't enough abortions performed in Texas.
You might want to explain the claim preclusion stuff; unless one understands that, the oral argument transcript makes no sense whatsoever.
"One requires stand-alone clinics, even those that perform only first-term abortions, to meet the standards of walk-in surgery clinics.
The American College of Surgeon's says that "Obstetrics and Gynecology" is a surgical specialty. Isn't having somebody take a scalpel to the insides of your uterus something that is outpatient surgery?"
Not one of those lawyers has ever dealt with a woman who has a perforated uterus and who arrives in the ER with no history at all.
We had a guy who did "home deliveries" and had no hospital privileges. If his patient could not deliver, sometimes after 24 hours of labor and of course with no fetal monitor, she would arrive in the ER. She would be in advanced labor with a damaged fetus. She would also be furious because she had not been able to do the home "natural childbirth" thing and the OB who had to take her and do a C section was dealing with an angry patient he had never met before. They were ready to sue for any bad outcome of their own foolishness and, of course, the home doc had no insurance.
Who do you think they would sue ? The OBs refused to take ER call and there was an angry revolt for a while.
The abortion story is very similar. Abortion complications are the untold story here,
Also, currently the abortionists use 'not having privileges' as an excuse not to communicate with ER/OB docs when a woman comes in. And she's often in such bad shape at that point that SHE can't give medical history to them. So they have to guess-- docs don't like guessing.
I heard horror stories from friends working in urban ERs. Basically, abortionists don't do followup and refuse to work with the hospitals when their patients show up with complications. From their perspective, they're paid to remove the baby, not to provide follow-up care.
If a regular OB did an in-office DNC (Most of my friends who've needed them for polyps or miscarriage have had to have them at the hospital, but imaginging that some OB was willing to do them off-site) then sent the woman home with no info and didn't come in or at least call in if she showed up at the ER, there'd be malpractice suits like crazy and the medical board would probably yank his license.
But somehow, abortionists don't have to follow basic OB safety protocols. I assume it's because we want to punish their patients or something. "If you end up sterile after this, it serves you right, woman. Now give me my $500 and get out of here...."
Thank you, Michael K, for your honesty.
And I want you to know God loves you, Jesus loves you, it's all good.
The Supreme Court appears evenly divided on abortion is a Tom Swifty.
Chuck said...
"Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who almost certainly holds the crucial vote, mused that it might be useful to return the case to the lower courts to develop more evidence."
Any self-respecting super-legislature wants to have all the available facts before it writes a major new law.
Now that's funny.
Michael K and Deirdre Mundy, those are strong stories that ring true. I'm going to read more. I know an NP who works in an urban district, and the stories from there are awful-- no attention to nutrition and obesity, zero attention to the cost of services rendered, and just plain child abuse by lack of attention or giving a crap. Some parents bend steel to give their kids a chance. Most don't.
...and no-shows. No-shows! You've got an appointment with someone making $100k/year at a big clinic, and you don't show up for the appointment?
That doesn't happen when the patient pays, has skin in the game. It's about 40% with patients with no skin in the game, on Medicaid and Medicare (and probably under the VA, though they won't talk about it).
I would love for the Court to invalidate the Texas law, saying that while it is explicitly about public health, etc., too much of the motivation and too much of the effect is to deny a constitutional right. That same reasoning would invalidate many post-Heller gun laws. As well as a lot of election and campaign finance law.
Michael K said...We had a guy who did "home deliveries" and had no hospital privileges(...)of course, the home doc had no insurance. Who do you think they would sue ? The OBs refused to take ER call and there was an angry revolt for a while.
--
So..that brings up a scenario even beyond/"below" ASC.
Seems to me if regulations on procedures are in order, they would need to be applied to all similar risk situations. Again..the ASC guidelines suggest a blanket admission arrangement as an option to individual doctor admitting privilege.
I'm not sure what you mean by OBs refusing ER call. I thought ER's were required to take all comers. Do you men general surgeons were employed where a specialist would have been more appropriate?
Walter 3/3/15 9:38
The ER has to take all comers, but that's just the staff on duty in the ER itself. Whether other doctors have to accept their patients - or even answer the phone - depends on the contract those doctors have with the ER and the hospital it's in. Presumably the OB in question had a contract which allowed him to refuse referrals, and he exercised that option.
Most likely would happen in this scenario is that the physician on duty in the ER would call the next OB on his list. But there's a undoubtedly a reason the list is in the order it is. He might have to call several of the OBs on the list to find someone who's available and willing to come. Or the next OB might be not as good a doctor, or might be two hours' travel away. And even if he gets just as good a doctor, the patient is suffering and the delay makes the prognosis worse.
Article about how some academic is saying that Justice Blackmun got the history of the morality of abortion all wrong (which actually was obvious from the beginning)
(It was what argued by the people who brought the case - a total lie. They claimed people only started thinking abortion was wrong in the 1860s)
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/bringing-down-the-flowers-the-controversial-history-of-abortion/471762/?utm_source=nl_weekly_link2_030416
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