The U.S. Supreme Court has stepped in to block a law that was designed to protect the health of women seeking to end the lives of their babies via abortion in Texas.
In an unsigned order from the court, they supported abortionists and those who advocate the killing of babies via abortion by suspending the October 2nd ruling of an appeals court that said that Texas law could take effect while appeals take place.
The court also put on hold a part of the law that requires doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals for abortionists near the Texas/Mexico border.
“This does not protect the health and safety of women who are undergoing abortion,” said Joe Pojman, executive director of Texas Alliance for Life. “”This is definitely a short-term loss, but not necessarily a long- term loss.”
Texas state attorneys say that the law is not a burden on women who want to kill their babies, because nearly 9 in 10 women still live within 150 miles of an abortionist.
A Federal appeals court has upheld a Texas law that will close many of the state’s abortion facilities.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed the decision of Judge Lee Yeakel, the second time his rulings to keep abortion clinics from having to meet cleanliness standards for surgical centers had been overturned by the appeals court.
“Without any evidence on these points, plaintiffs do not appear to have met their burden to show that the ambulatory surgical center provision will result in insufficient clinic capacity that will impose an undue burden on a large fraction of women,” the appeals court ruled.
While those standing for the lives of unborn children were pleased with the ruling, they were disappointed that abortions will still continue in the state.
“The reality is that elective abortions will continue to remain readily available in Texas; that’s not our preference, but that’s the reality,” Joe Pojman, executive director of the Alliance for Life, told reporters. “Because there are seven very large ambulatory surgical centers that provide abortion in the major metropolitan cities women will still have ready access to elective abortions.”
The California Catholic Conference has taken the state government to court over the state’s order that all Catholic institutions pay for voluntary direct abortions.
The abortions that must be covered include abortions for gender selection and for late-term abortions.
“Catholic beliefs about life and human dignity animate and shape our Catholic ministries,” Bishop Robert McElroy, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco told the Christian Post. “It’s why we oppose abortion, but it is also why Catholic schools provide education, Catholic hospitals care for the poor and vulnerable and why Catholic social services provide assistance to people and families in need. It goes to the core of our moral beliefs.”
The group claims that the state’s orders violate federal human rights laws.
“This is a coercive and discriminatory action by the state of California,” McElroy added. “This demand by the state was directly targeted at Catholic institutions like Santa Clara University, Loyola Marymount University, along with other California employers and citizens. It is a flagrant violation of their civil rights and deepest moral convictions, and is government coercion of the worst kind.”
A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott regarding a ruling that blocks parts of the state’s strong abortion law.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal on the grounds that Abbott was too late in filing the appeal.
“[Abbott] waited until 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 31 to file the stay motion; a corrected version was sent at 12:08 a.m. Monday, Sept. 1,” decided the Fifth Circuit. “This did not allow time for a response, or for the court adequately to consider the motion, before the scheduled effective date, though the appellants claim irreparable harm from the statute’s not being enforced.”
Abbott had appealed a decision that stops the regulations regarding abortion clinics having the same safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers. Judge Lee Yeakel, who had attempted to strike down the law previously before being overruled on appeal, said the requirements clinics have health standards like surgical centers makes it too hard for a woman to kill their child via abortion.
The ruling now will stand pending a full appeal to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
A Federal judge has ruled that because a majority of abortion clinic providers refused to make changes to their clinics as required by a Texas law and thus would have to close, the law is unconstitutional.
District Judge Lee Yeakel, who had previously ruled against the law in a case that was quickly overturned by an appeals court, said that requiring clinics to widen doors so paramedics could bring in a stretcher for a woman in distress is “too costly for abortion clinic owners” and therefore puts an undue burden on women wanting to kill their baby via abortion.
“The court concludes that the act’s [House Bill 2] ambulatory surgical center requirement, combined with the already-in-effect admitting privileges requirement, creates a brutally effective system of abortion regulation that reduces accesses to abortion clinics, thereby creating a statewide burden for a substantial number of Texas women,” Yeakel wrote.
The clinics had a year to bring their clinics up to the new standards but some abortion providers just refused to make the changes. That did not matter to the judge.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said the state will appeal the decision.
Abortionists have filed a lawsuit against the state of Louisiana over a law that the claim will force them to close.
HB 388 passed the Louisiana House of Representatives 88-5 and the Senate 34-3. The bill would require abortionists to obtain admitting privileges if a woman is injured during an abortion and require further medical care.
“On the date the abortion is performed or induced, a physician performing or inducing an abortion shall have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced and that provides obstetrical or gynecological health care services,” the bill reads.
The lawsuit claims that there is not a sufficient amount of time from the passage of the law until it goes into effect for the clinics to obtain the approvals necessary to stay open after September 1st.
Laws similar to the Louisiana law have been upheld in most other states including Texas, where at the end of 2014 it’s predicted only 6 of 41 abortion clinics will remain open.
A Democrat appointed federal judge has struck down an abortion law in Alabama that has passed Constitutional muster in multiple other states.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled that the law would require women to travel to obtain the end of their child’s life, and that because many of them are poor, it causes an undue burden on them to travel.
“A significant number of the women would be prevented from obtaining an abortion; others would be delayed in obtaining abortions, exposing them to greater risks of complications; and even the women who are able to obtain abortions would suffer significant harms in terms of time, financial cost, and invasion of privacy,” Thompson wrote.
Several abortionists including Planned Parenthood had sued to block the law that would have require doctors to have admitting privileges in the event they botch an abortion and cause a critical injury to a woman.
Thompson even suggested that there is no difference between abortion rights and gun rights.
A Mississippi law that would have shut down the state last abortion clinic was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court even though it had the same provisions as other states where the constitutionality was upheld.
A three judge panel with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it would mean women would need to travel to another state to kill their babies via abortion. That, the court said, would cause an “undue burden” on the women who wanted to end their child’s life.
The court also said the state is “obligated” to uphold the “right” for women to kill their babies via abortion.
The Mississippi law was modeled on a Texas law that requires all abortion clinics to have abortionists with admitting privileges at a local hospital should a complication arise during the procedure. All hospitals in the area of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization had refused to work with the abortionists.
The judge who dissented in the case said states are not required by the Constitution to provide abortion clinics, but rather to ensure the safety of anyone that wanted to operate a clinic within their state.
Notorious late-term abortionist Dennis Christensen of Wisconsin is trying to find a replacement for him at his clinic as a law that is on hold because of a judge threatens to put his clinic out of business.
The law, passed by the Wisconsin legislature 2013 and signed by Governor Scott Walker, would require all doctors who end babies lives via abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their abortion clinic. The law has been on hold because of U.S. District Judge William Conley pending a decision in the challenge to the law.
Christensen says that he and his partner Bernard Smith have been denied privileges at all the hospitals within 30 miles of their clinic, Affiliated Medical Services of Milwaukee. Should the judge refuse to strike down the law, the clinic would be forced to immediately close.
Christiansen says that he’s been turned down because he hasn’t treated an abortion patient in a hospital setting in over a decade. He told a judge that because his patients haven’t been in the hospital, it’s been a detriment to his gain privileges.
However, pro-life organization 40 Days for Life says the abortionist was lying to the judge. They have been tracking ambulance calls and say that nine times there were calls from the clinic. Four of the women who were then rushed to a hospital had to have emergency hysterectomies that they blame on the abortionist.
Christiansen’s other clinic in Illinois was shut down because the surgical equipment was sanitized and conditions were considered “not to be a sanitary environment.”
Two Democratic senators have introduced a bill they say is aimed to overrule the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision and force Christian business owners to pay for abortion drugs.
Anti-life Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Mark Udall of Colorado have created what they titled the “Protect Women’s Health From Corporate Interference Act.” Abortionists like Planned Parenthood have already praised the bill.
“After five justices decided last week that an employer’s personal views can interfere with women’s access to essential health services, we in Congress need to act quickly to right this wrong,” Murray said in a statement yesterday. “This bicameral legislation will ensure that no CEO or corporation can come between people and their guaranteed access to health care, period.”
“As the nation’s leading advocate for women’s reproductive health care, Planned Parenthood Action Fund is committed to making sure women can get the no-copay birth control benefit that we and others fought so hard to pass and protect,” Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards proclaimed. “No woman should lose access to birth control because her boss doesn’t approve of it.”
None of the Senators nor any of the groups speaking out in favor of the bill have mentioned that the Court’s decision only applies to 4 of the 20 contraceptives connected to the Affordable Care Act. This means that no women working for these companies is denied contraception.
