Supreme Court Reopens Clinics Closed By Anti-Abortion Law

[JEDI]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...-reopens-clinics-closed-by-anti-abortion-law/

an especially conservative panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit handed down an “emergency” decision permitting an anti-abortion Louisiana law to go into effect.
Under this law, physicians cannot perform abortions unless they have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital — an increasingly common requirement masterminded by an anti-abortion group that drafts model bills for state legislatures.
A challenge to a similar Texas law is currently pending before the justices.


wtf stupid 5th circuit.

also:
The Court’s decision to halt the Louisiana law is another sign that the conservative-but-not-absolutist justice believes that laws like the ones in Texas and Louisiana may go too far.


so it might be 5-3 against Texas and Scalia's vote wouldn't have mattered.
one can only hope.

 

[PokerGuy]

I think these laws are an abomination that should not stand. I hope the SCOTUS throws them out, but we'll see. I imagine Scalia would likely have been on the wrong side of that ruling.

These garbage laws do nothing to safeguard the health and wellbeing of anyone. The legislators know they can't ban abortion altogether, so they craft these in an attempt to do an end-run. I'm 100% opposed to that kind of stuff. Similar to when lefties try to ban guns by attaching onerous requirements or jacking up the price of ammo etc, but that's another thread altogether.

 

[Atreus21]

The legislators know they can't ban abortion altogether, so they craft these in an attempt to do an end-run. I'm 100% opposed to that kind of stuff.

Part of me agrees, but then I consider how the slave trade was banned in England.

 

[WHAMPOM]

For a real show of concern for womens' health, hospitals would be required to give abortion providers admitting privileges.

 

[Sonikku]

Seems to me like someone's pissed about Roe vs Wade. Maybe these conservatives ought to try revisiting that case in the Supreme Court if they want government expanded so badly. But spare us the whole dancing all around it.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I think these laws are an abomination that should not stand. I hope the SCOTUS throws them out, but we'll see. I imagine Scalia would likely have been on the wrong side of that ruling.

These garbage laws do nothing to safeguard the health and wellbeing of anyone. The legislators know they can't ban abortion altogether, so they craft these in an attempt to do an end-run. I'm 100% opposed to that kind of stuff. Similar to when lefties try to ban guns by attaching onerous requirements or jacking up the price of ammo etc, but that's another thread altogether.

Agreed in full.

Plus the lying of saying it's for the safety of the facilities in order to try and find "What do abortion clinics have that normal hospitals do not?". I would hope if a leak surfaces where they privately admit it is to screw over abortion clinics that they could be prosecuted for such actions.

 

[ivwshane]

I think these laws are an abomination that should not stand. I hope the SCOTUS throws them out, but we'll see. I imagine Scalia would likely have been on the wrong side of that ruling.

These garbage laws do nothing to safeguard the health and wellbeing of anyone. The legislators know they can't ban abortion altogether, so they craft these in an attempt to do an end-run. I'm 100% opposed to that kind of stuff. Similar to when lefties try to ban guns by attaching onerous requirements or jacking up the price of ammo etc, but that's another thread altogether.

Bravo! I agree whole heartedly!

 

[Paratus]

The liberal justices on the Supreme Court eviscerated Texas's "rationale" for these TRAP laws the other day.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/supreme_court_dispatches/2016/03/in_oral_arguments_for_the_texas_abortion_case_the_three_female_justices.html

...The morning starts with an arcane and technical debate that eats up most of Stephanie Toti’s time. Toti, arguing on behalf on the Texas clinics, first has to answer an argument—raised by Ginsburg—that the clinics were precluded from even bringing some of their claims. Between this and factual challenges from Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito as to whether there was any evidence on the record to show that the law itself triggered the closings of Texas clinics, she doesn’t have much time to get to the merits. So frustrated is Justice Elena Kagan by the conservatives’ repeated insistence that perhaps the clinics just coincidentally all closed within days of HB 2’s passage that she finally has to intervene. “Is it right,” she asks Toti, “that in the two*-week period that the ASC requirement was in effect, that over a dozen facilities shut their doors, and then when that was stayed, when that was lifted, they reopened again immediately?” Toti agrees. “It's almost like the perfect controlled experiment,” continues Kagan, “as to the effect of the law, isn’t it? It’s like you put the law into effect, 12 clinics closed. You take the law out of effect, they reopen?”...

Sototmyer asking about medical abortions by pill...

Sotomayor is back: “I'm sorry. What? She has to come back two separate days to take them? ... When she could take it at home, it’s** now she has to travel 200 miles or pay for a hotel to get those two days of treatment?”

Toti confirms that there is no reputable evidence that there is a medical benefit to having a medication abortion at “a *multi-million*-dollar surgical facility.”

Sotomayor asks for more time to finish her two-part question and the chief justice nods, resigned. Then Sotomayor asks why a dilation and curettage associated with a miscarriage can be performed in a doctor’s office whereas a basically identical D&C must be performed in an ambulatory surgical center when it’s for an abortion. Toti replies, and Sotomayor keeps talking. The chief thanks Toti but Sotomayor forges on, wondering if any other medical procedures require taking pills in a hospital. No, says Toti. Sotomayor is finally content to rest her case....


RBG brings the hammer down:

Ginsburg begins by asking Keller how many Texas women live more than 100 miles from an abortion clinic. When he tells her that women in El Paso can hop over the border to New Mexico, she stops him short. “That’s odd,” she muses, “that you point to the New Mexico facility. New Mexico doesn't have any surgical ASC requirement, and it doesn't have any admitting requirement. So if your argument is right, then New Mexico is not an available way out for Texas because Texas says to protect our women, we need these things.”

 

[Subyman]

These laws are tragic for some of the most vulnerable in our society. There have been cases of minors who were victims of rape not having the means to travel 200-300 miles to get the treatment they need.

 

[glenn1]

I think these laws are an abomination that should not stand. I hope the SCOTUS throws them out, but we'll see. I imagine Scalia would likely have been on the wrong side of that ruling.

These garbage laws do nothing to safeguard the health and wellbeing of anyone. The legislators know they can't ban abortion altogether, so they craft these in an attempt to do an end-run. I'm 100% opposed to that kind of stuff. Similar to when lefties try to ban guns by attaching onerous requirements or jacking up the price of ammo etc, but that's another thread altogether.

We need to pick one or the other; either we're a federalist nation of states that each have the autonomy to live under whatever misguided but otherwise constitutional laws they see fit (IMHO both anti-abortion trap laws and strict gun control laws qualify), OR we can have centrally imposed standards apply to all states who have no autonomy to pass laws of this kind at all. I'm fine with whichever way we go, but I strenuously oppose current status quo where state laws are complete ad hoc bullshit where one state can pass laws of this type that stay on the books for years while others have their similar laws struck down like here.

 

[Zorkorist]

If you give Government control of a Woman's body, this is what you get.

-John

 

[Nebor]

Why are conservatives losing votes over a battle they lost 40 years ago? It's idiocy.

 

[Zorkorist]

Let the person be free. Freedom is the principle upon which America is founded.

-John

 

[Zorkorist]

Why are conservatives losing votes over a battle they lost 40 years ago? It's idiocy.

It's Government that is still debating this today. Not conservatives, but Government.

If Government, had less power, then abortions would be cheaper and easier.

-John

 

[Jhhnn]

We need to pick one or the other; either we're a federalist nation of states that each have the autonomy to live under whatever misguided but otherwise constitutional laws they see fit (IMHO both anti-abortion trap laws and strict gun control laws qualify), OR we can have centrally imposed standards apply to all states who have no autonomy to pass laws of this kind at all. I'm fine with whichever way we go, but I strenuously oppose current status quo where state laws are complete ad hoc bullshit where one state can pass laws of this type that stay on the books for years while others have their similar laws struck down like here.

Dunno about gun laws, but Texas' trap law is utterly dishonest & a blatant attempt to deny women their constitutional right to abortion. It serves no other purpose.

It's disgraceful that some members of the SCOTUS entertain such dishonesty.

 

[glenn1]

It's Government that is still debating this today. Not conservatives, but Government.

If Government, had less power, then abortions would be cheaper and easier.

-John

Cheaper and easier? They're already pretty cheap. Abortion is always going to involve some amount of fixed costs and it's not like most providers are doing it for the money or make huge profits in doing them. The undeserved death threats and deserved social ostracization abortion providers get for it means only those most dedicated to the cause still perform the procedure.

 

[Zorkorist]

It's stupid that you think there is a Government mandated right to have an abortion.

Is there also a Government mandated right to have a pickle covered in peanut butter?

Neither have anything to do with Government.

-John

 

[glenn1]

Dunno about gun laws, but Texas' trap law is utterly dishonest & a blatant attempt to deny women their constitutional right to abortion. It serves no other purpose.

It's disgraceful that some members of the SCOTUS entertain such dishonesty.

Gun ownership is actually a protected right directly specified in the text of the constitution via the 2nd Amendment whereas abortion is a "constitutional right" only by means of an unwritten "right to privacy" that is not anywhere mentioned in the text and unenforceable whenever the government says so. While I agree that privacy is a fine principle to extend to all citizens and have no disagreement with the outcome of the Roe v. Wade decision, you should at least have the intellectual honesty to say abortion and privacy are a "constitutional right" only because some SCOUTS justices made it up out of whole cloth. It's no more an enumerated constitutional right than something like the college kids who claim to have a "right not to be offended" and it could easily be overturned by a future court. Privacy and abortion will never be an actual Constitutional right unless and until an Amendment to the Constitution happens to make it so, and no amount of protesting from you to the contrary would make it otherwise. Ask the NSA who is spying on your every communications whether you have a "constitutional right to privacy" if you disagree.

 

[Jhhnn]

Why are conservatives losing votes over a battle they lost 40 years ago? It's idiocy.

Because their convictions are religious in nature. For them, it's a moral crusade, a mission from God, if you will.

 

[Jhhnn]

Gun ownership is actually a protected right directly specified in the text of the constitution via the 2nd Amendment whereas abortion is a "constitutional right" only by means of an unwritten "right to privacy" that is not anywhere mentioned in the text and unenforceable whenever the government says so. While I agree that privacy is a fine principle to extend to all citizens and have no disagreement with the outcome of the Roe v. Wade decision, you should at least have the intellectual honesty to say abortion and privacy are a "constitutional right" only because some SCOUTS justices made it up out of whole cloth. It's no more an enumerated constitutional right than something like the college kids who claim to have a "right not to be offended" and it could easily be overturned by a future court. Privacy and abortion will never be an actual Constitutional right unless and until an Amendment to the Constitution happens to make it so, and no amount of protesting from you to the contrary would make it otherwise. Ask the NSA who is spying on your every communications whether you have a "constitutional right to privacy" if you disagree.

So what?

 

[Zorkorist]

Because their convictions are religious in nature. For them, it's a moral crusade, a mission from God, if you will.

It's Government that is still debating this, why? Because this is what they do.

Government hasn't fixed the problem. Government IS the problem.

-John

 

[glenn1]

So what?

So you no longer care if you're wrong I suppose. Better to wallow in error than be forced to actually think and challenge your own predetermined conclusions.

Just to reiterate - abortion is NOT a constitutional right. Period.

 

[Jhhnn]

So you no longer care if you're wrong I suppose. Better to wallow in error than be forced to actually think and challenge your own predetermined conclusions.

Just to reiterate - abortion is NOT a constitutional right. Period.

The SCOTUS has determined otherwise many times. That's a simple fact. Deal with it as it is, not as you wish it to be. Or follow the lead of the Bundy militia when it comes to the Constitution.

 

[Zorkorist]

There are various amendments to the United States Constitution.

The right to abort a baby is not among them.

-John

 

[Sonikku]

Wow I guess even Zorkorist thinks we need government telling us what to do sometimes.