Posted on 10/03/2014 4:13:09 PM PDT by iowamark
There are 13 fewer abortion facilities in operation in Texas today thanks to a court ruling allowing the state to enforce a pro-life law requiring tighter health and safety regulations.
A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned a lower court ruling yesterday and allowed the portion of the law requiring abortion offices to meet the same standards as other ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs) to take effect. Enforcing the ASC requirements forced abortion offices in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, McAllen, El Paso, Houston, and Dallas to shut their doors today.
Two of the judges were appointed by Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. The third, Judge Stephen A. Higginson, was appointed by President Obama.
“Texas had over forty abortion clinics prior to the enactment of H.B. 2,” Judge Higginson wrote in his partial concurrence, and “after the ASC provision takes effect, only seven or eight clinics will remain.”
That represents “more than an 80% reduction in clinics statewide in nearly fourteen months, with a 100% reduction in clinics west and south of San Antonio.”
Before H.B. 2 passed last year, Texas had more than 40 abortion facilities. But only a handful of abortion facilities meet the new standards, and all are located in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio. Abortion advocates say they lack the capacity to serve the 5.4 million women of reproductive age in the nation's second-largest state. The panel ruled that “women from McAllen have been traveling outside their city for nearly a year, and Plaintiffs made no showing that clinics in San Antonio (or any other city) have been deluged.”
The Texas Policy Evaluation Project estimated that there were 9,200 fewer abortions this year due to the law.
“The battle to protect the unborn is not over,” Texas Right to Life said, “but this is a decisive step in the right direction!”
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott's spokesperson Lauren Bean said, “This decision is a vindication of the careful deliberation by the Texas Legislature to craft a law to protect the health and safety of Texas women.” Abbott is running for governor against Wendy Davis, who filibustered a previous version of this bill.
Gov. Rick Perry signed H.B. 2 into law last July. It banned abortions after 20 weeks on the grounds of fetal pain, required abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their office, and made all abortion facilities meet ASC standards.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel had struck down part of the law on August 29, arguing that forcing women to drive 150 miles for an abortion constituted an “undue burden” to women, thus violating the Supreme Court's 1992 Casey ruling. He also scaled back the admitting privileges mandate.
That allowed Whole Women's Health to reopen two closed abortion facilities in McAllen and El Paso. Judge Higginson would have allowed those facilities to remain open. This morning, those businesses are closed again.
The company's CEO, Amy Hagstrom Miller, was outraged.
“Texas faces a health care crisis, brought on by its own legislators,” she said. Thanks to H.B. 2, her business has been reduced from five offices to one, a rented building in San Antonio.
Some pro-abortionist try and use the argument that an unwanted child would be without a good home. No indeed there are churches willing to pay for the pregnancy to term, there are couples willing to do same to adopt. Couples are having to go outside of the U.S. to adopt while babies are being murdered here.
Abortion is the most selfish act a human being can inflict upon an innocent child. The adult can be inconvenienced even for nine months so a child can live.It's like no I don't want "IT" and no you can't have "IT" either.
Closed clinics? That's good news. No like you say if we can just get it stopped here in Tennessee and then get adoption laws changed maybe some couples can give kids the chance they deserve.
Count me in.
Tennessee is trying we have 4 Amendments on the ballot for Nov. You do not have to live in TN to donate to the cause.
TURN IT UP! YES ON 1
http://youtu.be/_G2rjhmo4v8
For donations and yard signs
Yes on 1
http://www.yeson1tn.org/
#2 is pro judges LIBERALS should be a NO vote
#3 against a Payroll and State Income tax YES VOTE
#4 expands lottery, this one is up to your religious and personal conscience
We are urging people NOT to vote for RINO Governor, Halsam, he will be our next Governor by default whether you vote for him or not, but it makes the passage of the Amendments easier if he is NOT voted for, the less votes for Gov, the less needed to pass the Amendmemnts are needed.
Vote Yes on 1, 3, 4, NO on 2.
halsam has no credible opponent, the RINO does not need our votes, he is a defacto 2nd termed governor. Ditto goes for lamar as a 3rd term RINO senator.
I am not VOTING for either of them. A few local Atoka officials, and my State Sen. I don’t like my State Rep voted against the self serving woman. And the State Constitutional Amendments.
I ordered my sign a couple of weeks ago, still not been told where to go get it. Have seen a few up in Atoka.
Thank you for your work GailA.
I’m seeing a lot more YES on 1 signs up everywhere! Pray like crazy!!! ;-)
Wait’...I thought the liberals want safe and healthy abortion mills....
Looks like a democrat “war on women” since they closed their doors instead of being in complaince...
“the strange way the TN amendment process is set up, the ballots cast for the governorship can count as “no’s” against the Amendment).”
How does that work? I’m seeing lots of yes on 1 signs in yards around Jackson by the way
Consider a theoretical situation: say the total number of ballots cast in the governor’s race (for all candidates combined), is 2,000,000. And say the total number of ballots cast on the Amendment (“YES” and “NO” votes combined) is 200,000. Even if the vote for the amendment were unanimous -- if all 200,000 ballots cast were “Yes” votes --- the amendment would fail.
Why? Because the number of votes needed to pass would not be 100,001,--- a hundred thousand and one; It would be 1,000,001 -- a million and one --- a majority of the total ballots cast for all candidates for governor, combined.
So: the more vote are cast for governor, the higher the bar is set: the higher the number an amendment is required to get in order to pass. And the less total votes there are for governor, the less the total votes an amendment is required to get. A light turnout for governor makes it easier to pass an Amendment.
That leads to a purely tactical question: wouldn’t it help the Amendment if a lot of people voted YES on the Amendment, and didn’t vote for governor at all? In other words, if supporters cast their vote on the Amendment, but skipped the governor’s line on the ballot altogether?
The answer is YES.
Even most conservative prolife voters don't realize this: in order to pass Amendments we have to lower the ballots cast for Governor as much as possible, to "lower the bar" on the number of votes the Amendment has to get to pass.
I hope I'm not making myself too obscure?
We absolutely have to get the word out on this to ALL Tennessee conservative and prolife voters.
If there's a light balloting for governor, the Amendment will win.
If there's heavy balloting for governor, the Amendment will lose.
Not certainly, but very likely.
That explains it well. No reason to vote in the Governors race anyway. I’ll be relaying the info to others before election day
How a company that does medical procedures doesn't have to abide by rules that govern similar things is a mystery...
Praise the Lord!!!
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