I'm just glad women are not affected by wars and looting. Not like their kid's futures are being robbed or their lives aborted on the battlefield.
"In South, new laws would restrict access to abortions; Trend requires doctors to have hospital ties" by Emily Wagster Pettus | Associated Press June 01, 2014
JACKSON, Miss.— From Texas to Alabama, laws are being enacted that would greatly restrict access to abortion, forcing many women to travel hundreds of miles to find a clinic. The laws, requiring abortion doctors to have privileges to admit patients to local hospitals, could have a profound impact on women in poor and rural sections of the Bible Belt.
In many places in the South, clinic doctors come from out of state to perform abortions and don’t have ties to a local hospital.
Critics say the laws mean that hospitals, leery of attracting antiabortion protesters, could get veto power over whether the already-scarce clinics remain in business. They say the real aim is to outlaw abortions while supporters say they are protecting women’s health.
The laws are the latest among dozens of restrictions on abortions that states have enacted in the past two decades, including 24-hour waiting periods, parental consent, and ultrasound requirements.
‘‘You’re looking at huge swaths of the country where women’s options are becoming severely limited,’’ said Amanda Allen, state legislative counsel for the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.
The requirements are already in effect in Texas and Tennessee. Laws in Mississippi and Alabama are on hold during court challenges. Louisiana and Oklahoma are about to enact their laws, which would bring the total to 10 states.
Republican Governor Phil Bryant gave one blunt reason for signing that law in 2012: ‘‘We’re going to try to end abortion in Mississippi.’’
The Center for Reproductive Rights says that besides the South, other states with the laws are in the Midwest or the West — Kansas, North Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin, where it was challenged in court last week.
A federal judge told a Milwaukee abortion doctor Thursday to renew his efforts to obtain hospital admitting privileges, hinting that it could resolve a lawsuit alleging the Wisconsin law requiring such privileges is unconstitutional.
After judges allowed Texas’ privileges law to take effect earlier this year, 19 of 33 abortion clinics closed.
If Mississippi’s lone clinic would shut its doors, one option would be to drive about three hours from Jackson to Tuscaloosa, Ala., or about three and a half hours from Jackson to Bossier City, La.
A less likely option for a small number of women would be to find a Mississippi doctor who performs 10 or fewer abortions a month. If the doctor performs more, the practice is considered an abortion clinic under the law.
Supporters of the laws say admitting privileges protect women in case they hemorrhage, have cervical injuries or infection, or other problems during an abortion.
Denise Burke is vice president of legal affairs for Americans United for Life, one of the main antiabortion groups lobbying state legislatures to enact such laws. ‘‘An admitting privileges requirement is an obvious and medically appropriate regulation of the abortion providers,’’ Burke said.
Allen counters that the privileges are ‘‘absolutely not medically necessary’’ and that they are aimed at shutting clinics and severely restricting access to a legal medical procedure.
The Guttmacher Institute, which supports legal access to abortion, in a February report said first-trimester abortions carry ‘‘minimal risk,’’ with less than 0.05 percent — 1 in every 2,000 cases — involving ‘‘major complications that might need hospital care.’’ The report also said 89 percent of abortions in the United States are done within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. A full-term pregnancy is 40 weeks.
And if there were complications, hospitals would still accept and treat a patient even if her doctor can’t sign her in, opponents of the law say.
In 1992, the US Supreme Court upheld the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalizes abortions nationwide. It gave states the option to regulate abortions before fetuses are viable. But it came with the caveat that states may not place undue burdens on or create substantial obstacles to women seeking abortions.
Plaintiffs in court challenges are arguing that admitting privileges laws create just such burdens. Religious-affiliated hospitals might ignore or reject applications from abortion providers, and some won’t grant privileges to out-of-state physicians. Both obstacles were encountered by the traveling doctors at Mississippi’s clinic.
In Alabama, operators of three of five abortion clinics testified recently during a trial challenging the law that they use out-of-town doctors who wouldn’t be able to admit patients to local hospitals. They said they would have to close.
That would leave clinics in two cities, Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, which use local doctors, according to the state attorney general’s office.
In Louisiana, opponents said the Louisiana law would close three of the state’s five abortion clinics, leaving two in the northwest corner of the state. That creates a five-hour, one-way drive for women who live in the southeastern end of the state.
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Your position on abortion defines you as a woman, although as a voting block your are pretty much monolithic to my propaganda pre$$.
