Abortion

Old thread - an intractable challenge.

Clearly, considering the advances in medicine, the line where the fetus becomes a viable life is a line in the sand, changing constantly.

Lefties need to be clear about the terms under which infanticide is acceptable - not hide behind the ridiculous "woman's right to her body" claim. Try that with a girl you'd like to pay a couple hundred for some sexy time - where did that "right" go? Or, try it when she wants access to some medication that isn't approved yet. Not much of a right, is it?

The current, one size fits all approach that SCOTUS has foisted upon is isn't working. Let the states decide, if some want to ban it, let them. That's the US way.

For the record, I'm not opposed to infanticide, just the current hypocrisy.
 
JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring.

The Texas law called H. B. 2 inevitably will reduce the number of clinics and doctors allowed to provide abortion services. Texas argues that H. B. 2’s restrictions are constitutional because they protect the health of women who experience complications from abortions. In truth, “complications from an abortion are both rare and rarely dangerous.”

Many medical procedures, including childbirth, are far more dangerous to patients, yet are not subject to ambulatory surgical-center or hospital admitting-privileges requirements.

Given those realities, it is beyond rational belief that H. B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law “would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions.”

When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety.

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers laws like H. B. 2 that “do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion,” cannot survive judicial inspection.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/15-274_p8k0.pdf#page=46
 
JUSTICE GINSBURG, concurring.

The Texas law called H. B. 2 inevitably will reduce the number of clinics and doctors allowed to provide abortion services. Texas argues that H. B. 2’s restrictions are constitutional because they protect the health of women who experience complications from abortions. In truth, “complications from an abortion are both rare and rarely dangerous.”

Many medical procedures, including childbirth, are far more dangerous to patients, yet are not subject to ambulatory surgical-center or hospital admitting-privileges requirements.

Given those realities, it is beyond rational belief that H. B. 2 could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law “would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions.”

When a State severely limits access to safe and legal procedures, women in desperate circumstances may resort to unlicensed rogue practitioners, faute de mieux, at great risk to their health and safety.

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers laws like H. B. 2 that “do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion,” cannot survive judicial inspection.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/15-274_p8k0.pdf#page=46

Yet, forcing everyone to install elevators, ramps, wide toilets, fire escapes etc etc is reasonable for the govt to impose to ensure safety and access - but not requiring full access to medical services from abortion clinics should something go wrong. The hypocrisy.

Let each state do as they please.

Disband the FDA at the same time and let these women have full access to whatever meds they want - their bodies, right?
 
Dennis you missed my point.

Isn't one of the values of republicans less or smaller govt interference in our lives?

Telling people what they can or cannot do to their bodies seems a little controlling to me. Do you agree that steroids should be illegal?

You can't have it both ways, well you can but I believe you would call that flip flopping.
you are not just YOU when preg. you are TWO, deal with it or dont get preg IMO.....
this is the issue, you see it as ONLY ONE person, it is NOT only one life but TWO! and if you are driving a bus with children in it but decide to kill yourself and run off the road, would that not be illegal. why is is ok to kill a baby then... because they are younger its ok...
I am sorry but i am not for abortion, i have friends that have done it, even supported them and picked them up from hospital and even drove them there, but i do not agree with it, i was only supportive.
if it was me i would not do it and could not.

i do agree on less gov control in MOST aspects, but when it comes to protecting life i agree with whatever protects life best, be it animals or people, regardless where the law or debate is coming from IMO
 
you are not just YOU when preg. you are TWO, deal with it or dont get preg IMO.....
this is the issue, you see it as ONLY ONE person, it is NOT only one life but TWO! and if you are driving a bus with children in it but decide to kill yourself and run off the road, would that not be illegal. why is is ok to kill a baby then... because they are younger its ok...
I am sorry but i am not for abortion, i have friends that have done it, even supported them and picked them up from hospital and even drove them there, but i do not agree with it, i was only supportive.
if it was me i would not do it and could not.

i do agree on less gov control in MOST aspects, but when it comes to protecting life i agree with whatever protects life best, be it animals or people, regardless where the law or debate is coming from IMO

Yep, oddly it's always about prohibition for the sake of safety, the public good, or some other angle when it comes to lefties. Abortion on the other hand gets distilled into "woman's right to her body" and that's that, an abortion is dealt with at the same level as taking a dump.

Note that all I want is consistency, not the feeble hypocrisy - if the majority of a state (not the feds) want infanticide, sure, go for it, just be honest.
 
Why the Supreme Court couldn't tolerate Texas' abortion laws
Why the Supreme Court couldn't tolerate Texas' abortion laws

Texas finally pushed Anthony Kennedy too far. For more than two decades, states have pushed the envelope on abortion regulation, passing restrictions that in some cases make it nearly impossible for abortion clinics to operate. On Monday, the Supreme Court finally cracked down on these attempts to surreptitiously ban abortion. In the Court's most important abortion decision since 1992, the Court http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/15-274_p8k0.pdf the worst parts of a Texas abortion statute that would have required most of the state's abortion clinics to close. It was a major victory for the pro-choice movement.

...


WHY THE SUPREME COURT ABORTION RULING IS A BIG F***ING DEAL
http://www.newsweek.com/texas-abortion-law-stephen-breyer-supreme-court-ruling-474929

The ruling leaves opponents of legal abortion having to reassess one of their main strategies. The Supreme Court opened the door to state restrictions on abortion with the Casey v.Planned Parenthood decision of 1992. Many laws have emerged in the years since, including ones that imposed waiting periods on women before they can have an abortion, or required them to watch graphic videos depicting the killing of a fetus. But Monday’s ruling seems to have forestalled what had been a productive avenue for anti-abortion advocates. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the Texas law, also has jurisdiction over Mississippi and Louisiana, two states that have enacted statutes that are similar to Texas's. The court underscored today that a law that limits abortion access must have a rational purpose and not impose an undue burden on women.But “Casey requires courts to consider the burdens a law imposes on abortion access together with the benefits those laws confer,” the Supreme Court’s opinion notes.


Wisconsin abortion law likely hobbled by Supreme Court ruling
Wisconsin abortion law likely hobbled by Supreme Court ruling


Ala. attorney general dismisses appeal of 2014 ruling declaring state abortion clinic law unconstitutional
Ala. attorney general dismisses appeal of 2014 ruling declaring state abortion clinic law unconstitutional
 
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Yet, forcing everyone to install elevators, ramps, wide toilets, fire escapes etc etc is reasonable for the govt to impose to ensure safety and access - but not requiring full access to medical services from abortion clinics should something go wrong. The hypocrisy.

Let each state do as they please.

Disband the FDA at the same time and let these women have full access to whatever meds they want - their bodies, right?

You can't even compare the two....
 
Of course you can - the case had to with access to "adequate" facilities and services. From a legal point of view, not much difference at all. Other than one area concerning a sacred cow - but that's a political consideration.

There is. Adequate facilities is bullshit and a way around the law. It was simply passed to make it harder for abortion clinics to stay open.

Childbirth is 14 times more likely to result in death than abortion yet Texas law allows a midwife to oversee childbirth in a patient's home. Are midwives required to have admitting priveleges in hospitals???

There's no proof any of texas' laws would have helped one woman have a safer abortion. It was merely an attempt to stop abortions.
 
Supreme Court rejects two new abortion cases
Supreme Court rejects two new abortion cases

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand lower court rulings that blocked restrictions on doctors who perform abortions in Mississippi and Wisconsin a day after the court struck down a similar measure in Texas.

The laws in both states required doctors to have admitting privileges, a type of difficult-to-obtain formal affiliation, with a hospital within 30 miles (48 km) of the abortion clinic. Both were put on hold by lower courts. The Mississippi law would have shut down the only clinic in the state if it had gone into effect.


Cert is denied in the 7th Cir case striking down Wisconsin's abortion provider restrictions. Opinion by Posner: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/schimel-op-below.pdf

This was the decision where Posner took direct aim at the 5th Circuit abortion provider restrictions decision at issue in yesterday's case.
 
There is. Adequate facilities is bullshit and a way around the law. It was simply passed to make it harder for abortion clinics to stay open.

Childbirth is 14 times more likely to result in death than abortion yet Texas law allows a midwife to oversee childbirth in a patient's home. Are midwives required to have admitting priveleges in hospitals???

There's no proof any of texas' laws would have helped one woman have a safer abortion. It was merely an attempt to stop abortions.

You solidly misunderstand the whole issue.

What the feds choose to mandate regarding safety standards is clearly arbitrary, even capricious.

Usurping the states' authority to regulate their internal affairs is un-Constitutional.

If Texas wants their medical facilities offering these services to comply with a certain set of standards, up to them.

But go ahead, let your politics overrule your legal sense - as it has with the liberal portion of SCOTUS. Heaven forbid we get any more justices with that distorted view of the law.

You should be just as agitated then that some states (notably Cali, Hawaii and the New England states) excessively restrict firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition, gun store licenses (not to mention the federal hoops to jump through and the many fees to acquire an FFL) and so forth. That is equally offensive then, right?
 
#SCOTUS also denies cert in Storman v. Wiesman (Plan B case), leading to a lengthy dissent from the 3 conservatives: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2922322/Stormans-Dissent-Denial.pdf

The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

JUSTICE ALITO, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE THOMAS join, dissenting from the denial of certiorari.

This case is an ominous sign. At issue are Washington State regulations that are likely to make a pharmacist unemployable if he or she objects on religious grounds to dispensing certain prescription medications. There are strong reasons to doubt whether the regulations were adopted for—or that they actually serve—any legitimate purpose. And there is much evidence that the impetus for the adoption of the regulations was hostility to pharmacists whose religious beliefs regarding abortion and contraception are out of step with prevailing opinion in the State. Yet the Ninth Circuit held that the regulations do not violate the First Amendment, and this Court does not deem the case worthy of our time. If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern.
 
When my mom was in college, back in the 1950s in Calfornia, one of her soroity sisters died from a back alley abortion. If abortion becomes illegal, the only the rich will be able to get "safe" abortions from willing doctors and the poor and middle-class will resort to back-alley "doctors", coat-hangers, crochet hooks (as one of my acquaintances did), drano douches etc. In El Salvador, where abortion is illegal even in the case of the mother's life being in danger, unsafe abortion is the 2nd highest cause of maternal mortality, with girls as young as ten resorting to such practices. There the instruments of illegal abortion include not only what is mentioned aboce, but also fertilizers, any kindof caustic liquid, metal rods to pierce the uterus etc. Birth control there is available, but hard to come by for many poor women (El Salvador is horrendously poverty-stricken. I've been there). The best solution for the US is to make birth control pills over-the-counter and make condoms FREE everywhere, not jsut at the clinic. Birth control pills and even the Depo shot can be bought over-the-counter in every Latin American country (excpetion being El Salvador where an Rx is required) i have been in including Mexico. Simply the ease of purchase without having to go to a doctor would surely cut down on the amount of unintended pregnancies. Have you ever read the book "Freakonomics"? There is a good section abotu how the decision of Roe vs Wade to make abortion legal reduced the crime rate in future years because there were less children being born to women who were living in the lower socio-economic class where many criminals come from. Read it.
 
When my mom was in college, back in the 1950s in Calfornia, one of her soroity sisters died from a back alley abortion. If abortion becomes illegal, the only the rich will be able to get "safe" abortions from willing doctors and the poor and middle-class will resort to back-alley "doctors", coat-hangers, crochet hooks (as one of my acquaintances did), drano douches etc. In El Salvador, where abortion is illegal even in the case of the mother's life being in danger, unsafe abortion is the 2nd highest cause of maternal mortality, with girls as young as ten resorting to such practices. There the instruments of illegal abortion include not only what is mentioned aboce, but also fertilizers, any kindof caustic liquid, metal rods to pierce the uterus etc. Birth control there is available, but hard to come by for many poor women (El Salvador is horrendously poverty-stricken. I've been there). The best solution for the US is to make birth control pills over-the-counter and make condoms FREE everywhere, not jsut at the clinic. Birth control pills and even the Depo shot can be bought over-the-counter in every Latin American country (excpetion being El Salvador where an Rx is required) i have been in including Mexico. Simply the ease of purchase without having to go to a doctor would surely cut down on the amount of unintended pregnancies. Have you ever read the book "Freakonomics"? There is a good section abotu how the decision of Roe vs Wade to make abortion legal reduced the crime rate in future years because there were less children being born to women who were living in the lower socio-economic class where many criminals come from. Read it.

The "Freakonomics" book (which I have) makes a compelling case, but has since supposedly been refuted: http://www.economist.com/node/5246700 (I'd still like to see an abortion clinic on every street corner in Chicago's South Side (and some other areas) - I'm in favor of voluntary castrations and hysterectomies in exchange for $$$ and/or reduced sentences for criminals - should cut the vicious welfare cycle better than anything else. Separate topic.)

Whatever a person's opinion is on abortion - it is clear that the current emperor has no clothes (the "woman's health" angle as justification is absurd - hasn't been a single person on this thread who backs that laughable assertion) and that infanticide ought to be legalized so we can get away from the current legal mockery.

I'm all for disbanding the FDA - make everything OTC. Why should females be the only ones with easy access to steroids?
 
You solidly misunderstand the whole issue.

What the feds choose to mandate regarding safety standards is clearly arbitrary, even capricious.

Usurping the states' authority to regulate their internal affairs is un-Constitutional.

You have it backwards. SCOTUS deemed what Texas was doing is un-Constitutional. What Texas mandated regarding its safety standards is arbitrary and capricious. Yea, let's set a safety standard that won't make ANYONE safer.....:rolleyes:

If Texas wants their medical facilities offering these services to comply with a certain set of standards, up to them.

Not when it violates federal law, goes against prior SCOTUS rulings, etc.

But go ahead, let your politics overrule your legal sense - as it has with the liberal portion of SCOTUS. Heaven forbid we get any more justices with that distorted view of the law.

Pot meet kettle.

You should be just as agitated then that some states (notably Cali, Hawaii and the New England states) excessively restrict firearms, firearm accessories, ammunition, gun store licenses (not to mention the federal hoops to jump through and the many fees to acquire an FFL) and so forth. That is equally offensive then, right?

I'm a New England resident and while I don't agree with excessive firearm restrictions, some mild form of restrictions don't bother me. But wait, I thought you wanted states to be able to regulate themselves....:rolleyes:
 
You have it backwards. SCOTUS deemed what Texas was doing is un-Constitutional. What Texas mandated regarding its safety standards is arbitrary and capricious. Yea, let's set a safety standard that won't make ANYONE safer.....:rolleyes:

Not when it violates federal law, goes against prior SCOTUS rulings, etc.

Pot meet kettle.

I'm a New England resident and while I don't agree with excessive firearm restrictions, some mild form of restrictions don't bother me. But wait, I thought you wanted states to be able to regulate themselves....:rolleyes:

As much as I truly appreciate your advice re weight lifting etc, your legal skills are comparable to a box of rocks.

In contrast to the whole "women's right to her body" and the way SCOTUS cooked up a federal "right" to abortion out of nothing - the right to keep and bear arms is actually explicitly stated in the Constitution... not that the Constitution means a hill of beans in New England and on the kooky left coast.

Justice Thomas commented on this in his dissent (highlighted):

6. Made-up rights don’t trump those enumerated in the Constitution.
The Court has simultaneously transformed judicially created rights like the right to abortion into preferred constitutional rights, while disfavoring many of the rights actually enumerated in the Constitution. But our Constitution renounces the notion that some constitutional rights are more equal than others. A plaintiff either possesses the constitutional right he is asserting, or not—and if not, the judiciary has no business creating ad hoc exceptions so that others can assert rights that seem especially important to vindicate. A law either infringes a constitutional right, or not; there is no room for the judiciary to invent tolerable degrees of encroachment.​

Your rhetoric needs improvement too - stop creating strawmen, convenient as it might be to argue against positions I never took.

For those interested in law and reasoned positions, read this from the Federalist:
8 Best Quotes From Thomas's Texas Abortion Dissent

"Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion ripping apart the court’s tendency to bend over backwards to accommodate abortion. Here are eight of the sickest burns in http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/15-274_p8k0.pdf.

1. The court’s interpretation of “undue burden” is confusing as hell.

Today’s opinion does resemble Casey in one respect: After disregarding significant aspects of the Court’s prior jurisprudence, the majority applies the undue-burden standard in a way that will surely mystify lower courts for years to come.

2. Judges aren’t medical experts — even if they try to appoint themselves as such.

Moreover, by second-guessing medical evidence and making its own assessments of ‘quality of care’ issues. . . the majority reappoints this Court as ‘the country’s ex officio medical board with powers to disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States.’ . . . And the majority seriously burdens States, which must guess at how much more compelling their interests must be to pass muster and what ‘commonsense inferences’ of an undue burden this Court will identify next.

3. Arbitrary standards mess up constitutional law.

As the Court applies whatever standard it likes to any given case, nothing but empty words separates our constitutional decisions from judicial fiat.

4. The court just makes stuff up to get what it wants.

The illegitimacy of using ‘made-up tests’ to ‘displace longstanding national traditions as the primary determinant of what the Constitution means’ has long been apparent. . . The Constitution does not prescribe tiers of scrutiny. The three basic tiers— ‘rational basis,’ intermediate, and strict scrutiny—’are no more scientific than their names suggest, and a further element of randomness is added by the fact that it is largely up to us which test will be applied in each case.’. . . But the problem now goes beyond that. If our recent cases illustrate anything, it is how easily the Court tinkers with levels of scrutiny to achieve its desired result.

5. Muzzling free speech? No problem. Defining marriage? Good luck.

Likewise, it is now easier for the government to restrict judicial candidates’ campaign speech than for the Government to define marriage—even though the former is subject to strict scrutiny and the latter was supposedly subject to some form of rational-basis review.

6. Made-up rights don’t trump those enumerated in the Constitution.

The Court has simultaneously transformed judicially created rights like the right to abortion into preferred constitutional rights, while disfavoring many of the rights actually enumerated in the Constitution. But our Constitution renounces the notion that some constitutional rights are more equal than others. A plaintiff either possesses the constitutional right he is asserting, or not—and if not, the judiciary has no business creating ad hoc exceptions so that others can assert rights that seem especially important to vindicate. A law either infringes a constitutional right, or not; there is no room for the judiciary to invent tolerable degrees of encroachment.

7. There are too many legal exceptions for made-up rights.

Our law is now so riddled with special exceptions for special rights that our decisions deliver neither predictability nor the promise of a judiciary bound by the rule of law.

8. Some may call the decision a victory, but it’s a loss for America.

Today’s decision will prompt some to claim victory, just as it will stiffen opponents’ will to object. But the entire Nation has lost something essential. The majority’s embrace of a jurisprudence of rights-specific exceptions and balancing tests is ‘a regrettable concession of defeat—an acknowledgement that we have passed the point where ‘law,’ properly speaking, has any further application.’

The decision is the most significant abortion ruling since the Carhart ruling in 2007, which upheld a federal ban on partial-birth abortions."
 
As much as I truly appreciate your advice re weight lifting etc, your legal skills are comparable to a box of rocks.

In contrast to the whole "women's right to her body" and the way SCOTUS cooked up a federal "right" to abortion out of nothing - the right to keep and bear arms is actually explicitly stated in the Constitution... not that the Constitution means a hill of beans in New England and on the kooky left coast.

Justice Thomas commented on this in his dissent (highlighted):

6. Made-up rights don’t trump those enumerated in the Constitution.
The Court has simultaneously transformed judicially created rights like the right to abortion into preferred constitutional rights, while disfavoring many of the rights actually enumerated in the Constitution. But our Constitution renounces the notion that some constitutional rights are more equal than others. A plaintiff either possesses the constitutional right he is asserting, or not—and if not, the judiciary has no business creating ad hoc exceptions so that others can assert rights that seem especially important to vindicate. A law either infringes a constitutional right, or not; there is no room for the judiciary to invent tolerable degrees of encroachment.​

Your rhetoric needs improvement too - stop creating strawmen, convenient as it might be to argue against positions I never took.

For those interested in law and reasoned positions, read this from the Federalist:
8 Best Quotes From Thomas's Texas Abortion Dissent

"Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion ripping apart the court’s tendency to bend over backwards to accommodate abortion. Here are eight of the sickest burns in http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/15-274_p8k0.pdf.

1. The court’s interpretation of “undue burden” is confusing as hell.

Today’s opinion does resemble Casey in one respect: After disregarding significant aspects of the Court’s prior jurisprudence, the majority applies the undue-burden standard in a way that will surely mystify lower courts for years to come.

2. Judges aren’t medical experts — even if they try to appoint themselves as such.

Moreover, by second-guessing medical evidence and making its own assessments of ‘quality of care’ issues. . . the majority reappoints this Court as ‘the country’s ex officio medical board with powers to disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States.’ . . . And the majority seriously burdens States, which must guess at how much more compelling their interests must be to pass muster and what ‘commonsense inferences’ of an undue burden this Court will identify next.

3. Arbitrary standards mess up constitutional law.

As the Court applies whatever standard it likes to any given case, nothing but empty words separates our constitutional decisions from judicial fiat.

4. The court just makes stuff up to get what it wants.

The illegitimacy of using ‘made-up tests’ to ‘displace longstanding national traditions as the primary determinant of what the Constitution means’ has long been apparent. . . The Constitution does not prescribe tiers of scrutiny. The three basic tiers— ‘rational basis,’ intermediate, and strict scrutiny—’are no more scientific than their names suggest, and a further element of randomness is added by the fact that it is largely up to us which test will be applied in each case.’. . . But the problem now goes beyond that. If our recent cases illustrate anything, it is how easily the Court tinkers with levels of scrutiny to achieve its desired result.

5. Muzzling free speech? No problem. Defining marriage? Good luck.

Likewise, it is now easier for the government to restrict judicial candidates’ campaign speech than for the Government to define marriage—even though the former is subject to strict scrutiny and the latter was supposedly subject to some form of rational-basis review.

6. Made-up rights don’t trump those enumerated in the Constitution.

The Court has simultaneously transformed judicially created rights like the right to abortion into preferred constitutional rights, while disfavoring many of the rights actually enumerated in the Constitution. But our Constitution renounces the notion that some constitutional rights are more equal than others. A plaintiff either possesses the constitutional right he is asserting, or not—and if not, the judiciary has no business creating ad hoc exceptions so that others can assert rights that seem especially important to vindicate. A law either infringes a constitutional right, or not; there is no room for the judiciary to invent tolerable degrees of encroachment.

7. There are too many legal exceptions for made-up rights.

Our law is now so riddled with special exceptions for special rights that our decisions deliver neither predictability nor the promise of a judiciary bound by the rule of law.

8. Some may call the decision a victory, but it’s a loss for America.

Today’s decision will prompt some to claim victory, just as it will stiffen opponents’ will to object. But the entire Nation has lost something essential. The majority’s embrace of a jurisprudence of rights-specific exceptions and balancing tests is ‘a regrettable concession of defeat—an acknowledgement that we have passed the point where ‘law,’ properly speaking, has any further application.’

The decision is the most significant abortion ruling since the Carhart ruling in 2007, which upheld a federal ban on partial-birth abortions."

Whoopdy doo Justice Thomas commented on this....apparently 5 other justices thought he was wrong :)
 
Since Tenpoundsleft questioned the medical evidence presented by quoting the dissenting justices' view I thought I'd quote the opinion of the majority:


"The purpose of the admitting-privileges requirement is to help ensure that women have easy access to a hospital should complications arise during an abortion procedure. Brief for Respondents 32–37. But the District Court found that it brought about no such health-related benefit. The court found that “[t]he great weight of evidence demon- strates that, before the act’s passage, abortion in Texas was extremely safe with particularly low rates of serious complications and virtually no deaths occurring on ac- count of the procedure.” 46 F. Supp. 3d, at 684. Thus, there was no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure.

The evidence upon which the court based this conclusion included, among other things:

• A collection of at least five peer-reviewed studies on abortion complications in the first trimester, showing that the highest rate of major complications—including those complications requiring hospital admission—was less than one-quarter of 1%. See App. 269–270.

• Figures in three peer-reviewed studies showing that the highest complication rate found for the much rarer second trimester abortion was less than one-half of 1% (0.45% or about 1 out of about 200). Id., at 270.

• Expert testimony to the effect that complications rarely require hospital admission, much less immediate transfer to a hospital from an outpatient clinic. Id., at 266–267 (citing a study of complications occurring within six weeks after 54,911 abortions that had been paid for by the fee- for-service California Medicaid Program finding that the incidence of complications was 2.1%, the incidence of
complications requiring hospital admission was 0.23%, and that of the 54,911 abortion patients included in the study, only 15 required immediate transfer to the hospital on the day of the abortion).

• Expert testimony stating that “it is extremely unlikely that a patient will experience a serious complication at the clinic that requires emergent hospitalization” and “in the rare case in which [one does], the quality of care that the patient receives is not affected by whether the abortion provider has admitting privileges at the hospital.” Id., at 381.

• Expert testimony stating that in respect to surgical abortion patients who do suffer complications requiring hospitalization, most of these complications occur in the days after the abortion, not on the spot. See id., at 382; see also id., at 267.

• Expert testimony stating that a delay before the onset of complications is also expected for medical abortions, as “abortifacient drugs take time to exert their effects, and thus the abortion itself almost always occurs after the patient has left the abortion facility.” Id., at 278.

• Some experts added that, if a patient needs a hospital in the day or week following her abortion, she will likely seek medical attention at the hospital nearest her home. See, e.g., id., at 153.

We have found nothing in Texas’ record evidence that shows that, compared to prior law (which required a “working arrangement” with a doctor with admitting privileges), the new law advanced Texas’ legitimate inter- est in protecting women’s health.

We add that, when directly asked at oral argument whether Texas knew of a single instance in which the new requirement would have helped even one woman obtain better treatment, Texas admitted that there was no evi- dence in the record of such a case.


Other evidence helps to explain why the new require- ment led to the closure of clinics. We read that other evidence in light of a brief filed in this Court by the Soci- ety of Hospital Medicine. That brief describes the undis- puted general fact that “hospitals often condition admit- ting privileges on reaching a certain number of admissions per year.” Brief for Society of Hospital Medicine et al. as Amici Curiae 11. Returning to the District Court record, we note that, in direct testimony, the president of Nova
Health Systems, implicitly relying on this general fact, pointed out that it would be difficult for doctors regularly performing abortions at the El Paso clinic to obtain admit- ting privileges at nearby hospitals because “[d]uring the past 10 years, over 17,000 abortion procedures were per- formed at the El Paso clinic [and n]ot a single one of those patients had to be transferred to a hospital for emergency treatment, much less admitted to the hospital.” App. 730. In a word, doctors would be unable to maintain admitting privileges or obtain those privileges for the future, because the fact that abortions are so safe meant that providers were unlikely to have any patients to admit.



So it would be damn near impossible for an abortion doctor to get admitting privileges at a hospital bc there must be a certain minimum number of hospital admissions per year for them to be granted this privilege and abortion IS SO SAFE no abortion doctor would ever meet this required minimum. If that's not an undue burden I think you need to requestion your definition of undue :)
 
Abortion Laws Tumble Across the Country
Abortion Laws Tumble Across the Country

Less than a week after the Supreme Court's major abortion ruling in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, related restrictions across the country began falling like dominoes.

And that's just the beginning, according to advocates for abortion rights, who say their victory at the court will both strengthen existing efforts to beat back such laws and offer them a new set of tools for future challenges.

"I suspect that we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg," said Janet Crepps, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented the victorious Texas abortion clinics before the Supreme Court. "This opinion is going to have long term ramifications and ripple effects in current cases and cases we'll be bringing."

Since Monday, laws restricting abortion and non-abortion Planned Parenthood funding have already been temporarily or permanently wiped out in six states. The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a new case Friday challenging a whopping seven of Louisiana's new abortion restrictions. And on the heels of Whole Woman's Health, Planned Parenthood Federation of America announced an effort to pursue repealing laws in eight states through legislatures. (Even lawmakers hostile to abortion may prefer the less expensive option of repealing a law, rather than having to defend one that is unlikely to stand after the Supreme Court's decision.)

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Bridger- Is it a violation of your rights as an American to have to obey the speed limit? That is government telling you what you can and can not do....correct? The message couldn't be clearer, this is NOT simply a "Republican" view....it's a view of morality and decency! I am NOT a political party, Dem or GOP is what I mean. I am a person who has deffendend the Constituton, and believe that ALL...including un-born children have a right to life! 93% of abortions done in this country are because the two parties sexually involved failed to be responsible and use a contraceptive. No woman's "right to choose" superceeds a childs "right to live", or a mans "right to father". Do you like your hard earned money, that in the form of taxation, going to provide a service to irresponsible people? And let's not forget the psychological affect that abortion has on the woman involved! Woman increase their likelihood to attemp suicide by 50%. This is a California statistic. The study is new and data is now being anylized throughout this country.
I want you find a single state that funding for planned parenthood clinics goes to abortions. If you actually knew where your tax dollars went you would know that funding doesn't go to abortions, but providing std/hiv tests and other forms of contraceptives. I'm more worried about the fucking Crack addicts getting my tax dollars so they can afford their grocerys when they spent the day lighting up Crack and whatever other drugs. Those irresponsible people bother me. I believe if you want an abortion that's fine. What happens sometimes is where they baby can actually kill the mother and the mother is refused an abortion at certain hospitals.... is your life worth some unborn child. I see the argument of oh they could have the cure for cancer... but why subject people to a child they are not either financially ready for or emotionally ready for. I'd much rather have people who wants a child to keep it rather than someone from the hood whose kid is going to grow up a drug slinger gangster. And going further into child birth, not everyone should be allowed, you should have extensive testing for not only your genetics but your financial and emotional ability to have a child. Or if you're a violent criminal. I'm sorry but you don't deserve a child. Also if my wife doesn't want a child because it's going to have down syndrome and need a lifetime of support who are you to say it deserves to burden us... or is it our fault for not having anti down syndrome lube??? It's a choice, and what I can say is in the state of colorado if the child isn't stimulated and doesnt cry then it's not alive. See I'm a medical professional and I can tell you if you don't stimulate the child it won't even attempt to breath, so there were fallacies in this "source" to evoke emotion. That premature infant wouldn't have struggled to breath. It wouldn't have done anything accept died anyways
 
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