Pro-Life Groups Urge Supreme Court To Consider Women’s Health and Safety in Abortion Clinics and Right of States to Regulate

The American flag flies at half-staff at the U.S. Supreme Court, February 19, 2016 in Wash
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Dr. Susan Berry

As much of America sorts out Super Tuesday results, the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in a case that could be a defining moment for the safety and health of women in abortion clinics.

Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt revolves around two provisions of the state of Texas’ 2013 law – one that former Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered – that requires abortionists to hold admitting privileges at local hospitals and requires abortion facilities to be held to the same health and safety standards as other outpatient surgery centers.

“Many of us would call that commonsense, but the plaintiffs in this case have somehow reasoned that it is comparable to ‘a complete ban on abortion’ – a reminder of the kind of hyperbole that the big abortion industry uses to quash even the most basic protections for mothers and their babies,” writes Rep. Diane Black (R) in an op-ed at LifeNews.com.

Black – who serves on the House’s special panel investigating the abortion industry’s fetal tissue practices – observes that the abortion lobby will argue before the high court that ensuring a woman can quickly be transported to a hospital if she experiences complications during an abortion constitutes an “undue burden” on women who choose abortion.

While not unexpected, the abortion industry’s position in the case is curious since its supporters have spent years attempting to push the narrative that abortion is “health care” for women that should even be covered by “health insurance” like other “medical” procedures. The industry balks, however, at requirements that are demanded of others in the “medical” and “health” industries.

“Abortion supporters argue that if the law calling for clinic regulations and hospital admitting privileges for abortionists is enacted, it will place an undue burden on women seeking an abortion,” explains Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, in a statement sent to Breitbart News.

He adds:

But that is not really the issue. The truth is that these abortion practitioners think it is an undue burden on them to meet the same safety standards as other surgical practices. It’s not the law that’s bad; it’s the abortion industry that, when left to regulate itself, utterly fails to do so, and places women’s health and safety far behind the bottom line.

In fact, it was the 2013 Kermit Gosnell case that served as the impetus for Texas’ abortion safety law. Gosnell – who was convicted of murder for severing the spinal cords of babies born alive during abortions – also was found guilty in the death of one of his patients due to an anesthesia overdose. Despite complaints about the abuses occurring in Gosnell’s abortion clinic, both the abortion industry and the state of Pennsylvania failed to intervene in his “house of horrors” for nearly two decades.

Black writes:

After reviewing the horrific evidence of years of Gosnell’s abuses going unreported and unregulated by the state Department of Health, the Grand Jury in his trial concluded its report with a recommendation that abortion clinics be licensed like outpatient surgery centers, stating, “There is no justification for denying abortion patients the protections available to every other patient of an ambulatory surgical facility, and no reason to exempt abortion clinics from meeting these standards.”

Kristan Hawkins – president of Students for Life of America – sees hypocrisy in the claims of the abortion industry.

“This case is about protecting women from predatory abortionists who would rather make a profit than make sure they have admitting privileges to the nearest hospital,” she said in a statement sent to Breitbart News. “Abortion facilities – and those organizations that support them and lobby for them – who deem it horrifying to comply with the same standards as every other outpatient facility, are subjecting women to subpar and substandard care.”

“What ever happened to the pro-choice mantra of ‘SAFE, legal and rare?’” Hawkins asks. “This is in no way a pro-woman stance and we urge the Justices to uphold the Fifth Circuit and protect women.”

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie of The Catholic Association agrees. She asserts:

Medically reasonable guidelines that enhance patient safety and care, like buildings with wide hallways and ramps to the parking lot, as well as physicians who can obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals—are deemed just too costly by abortion clinics. They argue, instead, for the right to put women in danger, by delivering substandard care during surgical procedures. Legal abortion was supposed to get rid of the back-alley abortionist. Now, in an ironic reversal driven by greed, the back-alley abortionists work comfortably on main street—and fight shamelessly for the right to deliver less-than-adequate care to the women who trust them.

Pro-life group Live Action has seen up close during its own investigations what happens in abortion clinics.

“Because of Live Action’s nine years of undercover investigative work, we have a unique ‘inside’ perspective into our nation’s abortion facilities,” the group’s president Lila Rose says. “Our video footage shows workers repeatedly lying to women about how developed their babies are and whether they can feel pain during an abortion, as well as the potential complications of abortion and whether the facility had previously sent clients to the emergency room.”

“Live Action’s investigations also found abortionists complicit in trying to cover up sex crimes against minors by offering to provide abortions and not alerting law enforcement, and admitting that they would break the law by refusing to perform life-saving procedures on babies born alive from botched abortions,” she adds.

Rose observes that even the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade “declared that abortion is subject to limitations and that states can create health and safety standards to protect mothers and preborn children.”

“Abortion facilities shouldn’t be given a pass just because they’d rather line their pockets than pay to update their facilities to meet the basic health and safety standards hospitals and health care clinics have to follow,” she asserts.

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