Posted on 06/28/2016 8:53:54 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
AUSTIN, Texas — Long wait times for abortions and lengthy drives to clinics are likely to continue in Texas for months and maybe years despite the U.S. Supreme Court striking down restrictions that since 2013 have drastically reduced the number of providers statewide.
Texas lost more than half of its 41 abortion clinics in the three years since former Republican Gov. Rick Perry signed a sweeping anti-abortion law that justices largely dismantled in a 5-3 ruling Monday. The decision amounted to the Supreme Court's strongest defense of abortion rights in a generation and could imperil similar restrictions in other states.
The Texas laws required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and forced clinics to meet hospital-like standards for outpatient surgery. But even with those mandates now gone, Planned Parenthood and others providers are not yet making promises about breaking ground on new facilities in Texas.
And any openings, they cautioned, could take years, meaning that women in rural Texas counties are still likely to face hours-long drives to abortion clinics for the foreseeable future.
Buildings need to be leased. Staffs need to be hired. Clinics must still obtain state licenses and funds for medical equipment must be raised. Meanwhile, the Republican-controlled Legislature is all but certain to remain hostile to abortion providers that try to expand.
"We really have a daunting task to determine whether and how we can reopen our health centers," said Whole Woman's Health founder Amy Hagstrom Miller, whose chain of abortion clinics in Texas includes the state's only provider on the southern border with Mexico.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards also would not immediately commit to the nation's largest abortion provider opening more Texas clinics, but she expressed hope.
"Just to re-establish services in a community and get the licensures is just not something that is going to happen overnight," said Richards, who is the daughter of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards.
For now, providers are celebrating because it could have been far worse: Had the law that former Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis once temporarily blocked with an 11-hour filibuster been found constitutional, only 10 would have remained open in a state of 27 million people.
The bill propelled Davis, at the time a state senator who ran for governor in 2014, to national stardom when her filibuster packed the Texas Capitol with raucous protesters whose shouts deafened the Senate floor as time ran out on the measure.
More than 40 abortion clinics in Texas were open at the time, but neither Richards nor abortion rights groups would predict whether Texas would ever reach that number again. Davis said the expectation for now is that areas without a nearby clinic will at least see one reopen within the next six months, and that the goal may not necessarily be getting back above 40 facilities.
"The benchmark is more closely aligned with geographic proximity," Davis said. "If women are able to geographically access that care without tremendous costs or burdensome travel then we'll be back to where we need to be."
Monday's ruling now gives Texas abortion providers the go-ahead to continue offering abortions in smaller facilities that are akin to doctor's offices. Many clinics had faced multimillion-dollar renovations to comply with the law, such as upgrades to air ventilation systems and hallways wide enough to accommodate hospital beds.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott rebuked the justices for taking away rules that he says protect the health and safety of women, and Republican leaders in states including Michigan, Missouri and Pennsylvania have used similar arguments while enacting nearly identical laws. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing in a concurring opinion, said it was "beyond rational belief" that the Texas law looks after women.
The landscape of abortion in Texas changed drastically over the last three years: Most remaining clinics are concentrated around the major cities of Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, leaving many women in vast rural swaths of the state facing long drives to the nearest provider. The result was that wait times at some Texas abortion clinics started exceeding 20 days, Davis said, while opponents of the law also warned about women seeking out abortions in Mexico instead.
Just thinking exactly that: as the left does to Conservatism.
Find anything - i.e., make new law requiring ALL Abortion doctors to be able to perform a 6 meter Pole Vault in order to maintain their license and practice. Fight in court. When it is deemed invalid, pass another law. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Works for the ‘Rats - user their MO.
Why don’t they change a few words and immediately ennact another law, then make it go through all the hoops again in a continual redtape blizzard?
I’ve often wondered why legislatures don’t just create a defacto repassing of the legislation and force the courts to spin their wheels.
We have long been the stupid party.
Texas did it right. You pass a law, force them to shut down, then you fight it all the way to the Supreme court.
Now that they have struck it down, you pass another law, you keep the pressure on, and you once again let them fight you all the way back to the Supreme Court.
You Keep repeating, keep defying those D@mn federal judges who want to play dictators, and you keep running up their costs until they are out of business.
The fact that you are going to lose in court has nothing to do with it. You keep defying the courts. You keep defying the courts. You keep defying the courts. You keep defying the courts.
You make it so difficult for them to get what they want that eventually you win.
We should have been doing this tactic all along. When the courts are wrong, they need to be defied.
Yes, we need to play these silly games instead of rolling over. I am advocating a sort of "Irish Democracy" so far as how we deal with the Bastard courts we have nowadays.
Yes. This is always the attitude we should have been putting forth about vile "made up" decisions.
"Supreme Court! You better send the army, or otherwise F*** You!" "We will Not Obey."
It is long past the point where many states should have simply told them that "we don't give a sh*t what you think, if you want to force us to obey your stupid ruling, you better send guns to make us."
Exactly. This is Exactly what we should have always been doing.
When is Texas going to say enough - When is the State going to say that it (Texas) is following the real Constitution, the one signed by the original 13 and effectively ratified by each new State when it joined the Union, and that the one the Fed gov’t is imposing was not what the States ratified? Maybe appeal to the World Court or UN - after all, the US is a signatory to those and the States still retain some sovereign rights. Sue the US Gov’t for breach of contract, or something along those lines.
When Clinton said, “Safe, legal and rare,” he just meant legal.
That’s how to do it.
In the face of a Supreme Court ruling, toss the bird and keep on.
It’s the Obama Way.
Funny how an implied right is sacrosanct but one that is actually spelled out like the 2nd amendment is worthless.
Texas should pass massive taxes on abortion clinics.
Evidently this is supposed to make somebody sad.
Thanks to Rick Perry, Greg Abbot and Dan Patrick.
Perry: longest serving Texas governer.
Abbot: Former AG: Now the governor. Has sued the Obama admin many times and continues to do so.
Patrick: LT. Governor. Actually has more power than the governor. Strong Christian man.
The culture of the Texas state government is set by Abbot and Patrick. And to think, in the last election, Abbot’s opponent was Wendy Davis, the democrats one trick pony also known as Abortion Barbie. She lost big.
Abbot just might pull an Andrew Jackson. Hope he does.
And if he stands up for Texas, it would be a medical miracle.
He is in a wheelchair.
I know, picking at nits, but what the hey.
The regulations were inspired by the atrocities of Kermit Gosnell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell
Abortion is murder, prosecute!
The state needs to declare person hood at conception.
The wonder is that she thought she had any chance of winning. Where do these sorts of delusions come from?
Note that this pro-Kermit Gosnell opinion piece was written in Philadelphia.
In the meantime, tax the living sh*t out of the clinics by making their product (abortion on demand) taxable in Texas. Let them pass the additional cost on to their customers. After all, the women have a right to choose and somebody has to pay the tax. And that's usually the customer. Just fix it so taxpayers at large don't have to foot the bill.
Maybe use the new revenue to hire some state inspectors or utilize some existing ones to oversee the clinics meet rigid cleanliness standards i.e. no visible blood, bodies, foul odors, or bacterial stains remain on the equipment or premises.
Maybe Texas should require all abortion clinic workers to be licensed by the state. Maybe some critical positions (like master abortionist) would require two or more licenses by the state. Also abortion workers need to have periodical physicals and pass rigid health tests for TB, Hepatitis, HIV, STDs etc. to insure the safety of the customers from exposures to such diseases. Maybe a random drug test occasionally or even psychological tests to insure the abortion workers are up to the task at hand.
And of course require that they have adequate liability insurance in case they screw the pooch and maim or kill somebody. If a customer has to be taken to a real clinic or Hospital, make the abortion provider or his insurance company accountable for the additional cost of health care and rehabilitation. Maybe revoke the license of abortionists that have too many of such instances on their record.
Require buildings to be bombproof, fireproof, F5 tornado resistant, and secure in any manner that affects the customers safety. Finally make it a gun free zone.
I know other Texas businesses have to meet some or all of these requirements so the abortion business should not be exempted for the good work they do regulating the Texas population./s
Just some random thoughts on the matter...no response required.
Best things for Texas girls (and unmarried women): JUST SAY NO!
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