SCOTUS Blocks Key Parts of Texas Abortion Law
Admitting-privileges and ambulatory surgical center requirements on hold for now.
The Supreme Court has issued an unsigned order blocking key provisions of sweeping new health care regulations from being enforced against Texas abortion providers.
Via Fox News:
In an unsigned order, the justices sided with abortion rights advocates and health care providers in suspending an Oct. 2 ruling by a panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that Texas could immediately apply a rule making abortion clinics statewide spend millions of dollars on hospital-level upgrades.
The court also put on hold a separate provision of the law only as it applies to clinics in McAllen and El Paso that requires doctors at the facilities to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The admitting privileges remains in effect elsewhere in Texas.
Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas said they would have ruled against the clinics in all respects.
This decision temporarily set aside provisions that require abortion clinics to follow the same health and safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers; this means thirteen abortion clinics that closed after the law took effect will be allowed to reopen. It also exempted practitioners operating clinics in El Paso and McAllen (larger cities in the Rio Grande Valley) from having to gain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
Pro-choice organizations are, of course, gloating; but keep in mind that this was an emergency ruling. Advocates for abortion providers asked for the Supreme Court’s ruling because the Fifth Circuit allowed the restrictive new laws to be enforced during the appeals process.
This isn’t the end of the world, but it is an unfortunate pause in Texas lawmakers’ efforts to preserve the sanctity of life.
The order in full:
The application to vacate stay of final judgment pending appeal presented to Justice Scalia and by him referred to the court is granted in part and denied in part. The Court of Appeals’ stay order with reference to the district court’s order enjoining the admitting-privileges requirement as applied to the McAllen and El Paso clinics is vacated. The Court of Appeals’ stay order with reference to the district court’s order enjoining the ambulatory surgical center requirement is vacated. The application is denied in all other respects.
Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and Justice Alito would deny the application in its entirety.
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Comments
Some justices seem to believe that even the mother’s life is expendable. G-d help this country.
Karnamaya Mongar, Tonya Reeves, and Jennifer Morbelli unavailable for comment.
Chief Justice “John Roberts The Traitor” and Justice Anthony “Hooray for Abortion and Gay Marriage” Kennedy raise their ugly heads again.
How often do Chief Justices weigh in on stuff like this?
Ruthie must really want to make sure that we have a way to get rid of “poor babies”, you know how much she hates those from back when she was roommates with Margaret Sanger.
So here is how it stands in Texas, as of today:
if you need to have an impacted wisdom tooth removed by an oral surgeon, that oral surgeon is required to have ambulatory facilities and hospital privileges. Yet, you can have a 19 1/2 week baby aborted, which requires the same precautionary practices as having a wisdom tooth removed, but the SCOTUS questions whether the doctor should have hospital admitting practices?
The ironic part of this is that most general dentists no longer want to remove wisdom teeth so they are sending their patients to oral surgeons. Dentistry, like all medical practices, are becoming more and more specialized.
For Roberts to side with the left side of the court simply confirms that he is more worried about being politically correct than adhering to the U.S. Constitution.
…or sound health policy.
Remember all those back-alley coat-hanger abortions…???
There is nothing that shows that ever happened. It’s an urban Collectivist myth.
You’re right, of course. They didn’t actually use coat hangers but often enough women would end up in a vet’s or dentist’s office after hours to have an abortion. And do you think these shady doctors only wanted money for the procedure?
Calling it an urban myth is a truly breathtaking display of ignorance.
Well, you just admitted to the verity of what I DID say.
And weren’t some abortionists wonderful benefactors of humanity?
You know, like the ones who do it now?
Wooosh.. that one went right over your head.
Never heard of many vets or dentists doing abortions. Most decent sized cities had at least one physician who had connections to the criminal class. (The same docs also treated gunshot wounds off the record.) There were also foreign trained physician who couldn’t get licensed here who set up as abortionists.
The key thing is back then all abortionists had to be particularly careful. They could both lose their professional license and go to jail if they sent even a single patient to the hospital. That tended to focus the mind. Emergency rooms were required to report suspicious incidents and both the state medical societies and the public health officials would investigate. While bribes might buy such officials off, it also removed the profit.
Ironically today many public health officials simply don’t care how many patients an abortion clinic sends to the hospital. The ultimate watchdog, the writers of medical malpractice insurance, aren’t vigilant either. Few lawsuits get filed because juries tend to be unsympathetic to those injured in the process of obtaining an abortion.
What’s kinda cute is that the rigor for getting into professional schools is rated vets, then dentists, then physicians.
Heh!
When dentists can extract wisdom teeth by administering a drug, the won’t need ambulatory facilities and hospital privileges.
As far as the danger goes, a woman is at higher risk during child birth.
One other thing: A doctor in LA refused to administer and epidural to some patients when they didn’t have $400 in cash on the spot. Where does that fit into your calculus? The poor must have babies, but they must also suffer?
This is why its SO important to hold your nose and vote for the Establishment GOP. So we can take the Senate and appoint true conservatives like Roberts!
Hmm. Comment didn’t take my “vomit” in brackets as a sarcasm tag.
Human performance was a commodity. Now human life is a commodity, too. Progress.
Wait. Human life was a commodity, and that changed, supposedly.
The unwanted clumps of cells are harvested and recycled for stem cell therapy. I wonder if Gosnell was actually a whistleblower who exposed the horrific nature of this industry.
I read the article. It doesn’t say who voted for it, or whether the full court was even involved with the stay. That Roberts was behind the order or even involved with it isn’t apparent to me. I am no SCOTUS process hawk, so I’ll happily stand corrected if I’m wrong. The only thing we can presume from the information given is that Thomas, Alito and Scalia did not support it.
PS: abortion is murder.
If Roberts and Kennedy had said that they did not support the Stay, it would have been 5 to 4 against, it would not have been granted, and the law would have gone into effect as the 5th Circuit stated in refusing to grant a stay while it considered the appeal.
Necessarily at least Roberts OR Kennedy had to approve of the stay for it to be granted. That Roberts did not join in the Scalia, Thomas and Alito comment shows that he at least tacitly approves of the granting, if not the final outcome.
PS – He is forever “John Roberts the Traitor” for his switch and tortured logic on Obamacare. That disaster sealed his historical fate FOREVER.