Posted on 03/04/2020 9:06:31 AM PST by Kaslin
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a Louisiana case that will be avidly followed by both sides of the abortion divide. June Medical Services v. Russo will test whether a state can require abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The clinic will argue that women are perfectly safe without this precaution. Louisiana, on the other hand, will argue that the requirement is a common-sense health and safety regulation to protect mothers’ lives. Who is right?
One amicus brief supporting the state – signed by 207 members of Congress – makes a compelling case that women seeking abortions in Louisiana clinics will find themselves in dangerous hands, and that ensuring their safety is a legitimate legislative priority. It provides an important backdrop to the case by documenting years of shocking health and safety violations at June Medical and the two other abortion clinics involved in the suit. It also documents a long history of serious professional disciplinary actions against Louisiana abortionists.
Surgical abortion is an invasive procedure, and like any other surgery, requires sterile technique, close patient monitoring, and a high level of competency on the part of practitioners to keep dangerous, even life-threatening complications at bay. Dirty surgical instruments, expired and/or inadequate medications, untrained staff, scanty documentation – these and other failures of basic patient care are unacceptable in any surgical facility. Sadly, they were found over and over during state inspections of Louisiana‘s abortion clinics. Again and again, the clinics were cited for failure to properly sterilize and decontaminate instruments – instruments used to enter the mothers’ vaginas and uteruses – as well as the use of dirty needles and the re-use of single-use instruments.
It appears that substandard care has been the norm for women getting abortions at the Louisiana clinics. Besides unsanitary conditions, missing or expired medications were a common occurrence. The lack of emergency IV fluids led to severe complications in one case. The state documented the clinics’ failure to properly monitor sedated patients in addition to many instances of inaccurate and faulty documentation and reporting. Most damningly, the clinics failed to inform the state of the abuse of children. In upholding the Louisiana law, the Fifth Circuit decried this “horrifying…protection of rapists.”
Of course, substandard care is what one might expect when the supervising physicians have long histories of disciplinary actions against them for unethical and unprofessional behavior. The court brief draws heavily on the Fifth Circuit Court’s opinion, which went into great detail describing the deplorable records of the abortionists at the clinics in question. “Incompetent”, “neglectful”, and “non-compliant” – doctor after doctor lost their admitting privileges in Louisiana hospitals after inappropriate treatments resulted in the death or disability of their patients, both mothers and children. While employed at one of the clinics, one Doctor Whitmore, “used instruments that were rusty, cracked, and unsterile…” After one late-term abortion in which he perforated the patient’s uterus, “the patient continued to have moderate bleeding but the ambulance was not called for nearly three hours.”
Louisiana’s law requires physicians who perform abortions to have hospital privileges for two important reasons. First, admitting privileges act as a seal of approval and weed out dangerous practitioners with red flags on their records. This is crucial when the state’s abortion clinics have shown themselves incapable of (or uninterested in) hiring competent physicians to perform outpatient surgeries on vulnerable women. Second, a patient with a serious complication will be admitted to the hospital by the doctor who knows exactly what went wrong, ensuring that continuity of care will be preserved. It’s important to note that by requiring admitting privileges for abortion providers, the state of Louisiana isn’t singling them out for special treatment. Rather, the state seeks to bring them “into the same set of standards that apply to physicians providing similar types of services [in other ambulatory surgical centers.]" The guiding principle is this: Louisiana women going in for an abortion ought to be at least as safe as women going in for liposuction.
The clinics suing Louisiana claim that the state’s law will put the them out of business and harm the women they serve. The truth is that if these abortion facilities had a shred of compassion for the women they claim to be helping, they would only employ doctors who could easily meet Louisiana’s basic requirement. And, if they can’t run a safe and clean ambulatory surgical center, they should be out of business.
If legal abortion is to make abortion safe, then why shouldn’t the Dr have admitting privileges in case something goes wrong? When something goes wrong, the patient shows up in the ER and they have to triage and figure out where the problem is. They need to own their problems just like everybody else including the cosmetic surgeon types. Why not abortionists? beyond logic
Sadly, "who is right?" Is not the actual test the Supreme Court will use. For all practical purposes, the matter will be decided by what the majority of the court says is the applicable standard of scrutiny that the state must carry. A low standard and the law stands, a high standard and the law falls.
This whole thing makes it abundantly clear that the abortion industry and “women’s rights” organizations have no interest in protecting women. Next time they shriek about back alleys, they can just ____ off. They’d be fine with back alleys if they could charge for it.
PP IS the “back alley”.
The issue is that local hospitals don’t want to get involved in abortion politics and therefore refuse to give the doctors admitting rights.
Does anyone know how normal (healing type) doctors view abortionists? Are they uncomfortable around them? Do they stay separated as at conferences or gatherings? Do they take it as part of the profession and accept it?
I hoped no pro life laws would go to this court. We will lose, precedent will be set and the baby killing will continue unabated for another generation. We needed to flip at least one rat SC Justice.
...The issue is that local hospitals don’t want to get involved in abortion politics and therefore refuse to give the doctors admitting rights
I have a close friend from Louisiana, Democrat and cradle Catholic, argued the same thing. I was horrified to hear him argue FOR abortion, it was difficult to listen to...
We don’t generally interact. First they don’t come to hospitals as they don’t have privileges. There is no reason for us to go see them. Second, there is not a reasonable doctor who understands medicine that would say there is a reason for abortion free the 28th week as by that point the pregnancy is viable the vast majority of the time. There is absolutely no physiological or pathological reason thst would necessitate abortion instead of delivery. Third I have had to take care of patients who have had botched abortions and their so called physicians won’t even pick the phone to let us know what happened. We just get patients on shock and nigh on death delivered by ambulance.
Please don’t insult us real healers by using the term doctor for these monsters.
Abortion is murder it is not a medical procedure
I actually kept the two terms separate.
True doctors like yourself having to work to help the victims of these monsters and then not having full cooperation of the abortionists is something that should not be permitted by law.
Shows how little the legislators and Planned Parenthood types really care about “protecting” the women——let alone the babies who are killed.
God bless you for your work as a real doctor.
When I was a surgery resident we had a saying. “If you can’t treat the complications you shouldn’t be doing the procedure.” Nothing is more frustrating than having to spend a lot of time and effort fixing someone else’s mistake that you know for a fact would not be the case had you done the procedure.
My point is that the Supreme Court will work backwards to its desired ruling by manipulating the standard it applies to the state's regulation.
It is quite normal for a state to regulate hospitals etc. and, normally with the close advice of the medical community, to set down regulations about qualifications etc. In this instance, a left-wing legislator attempted to shape the field and it appears that it might have backfired. Normally, this would not be a matter for the courts, certainly not for the Supreme Court of the United States-but abortion is involved.
So the whole case from this perspective is a bogus enterprise. It will be decided by manipulating legal standards to fit a preconceived outcome in a case that exists only as an unintended consequence.
Having spent a career of 35 years in it one of the first things I decided to do is figure out the difference between “good doctor” and “bad doctor” so you know who to try to emulate. A good doctor wouldn’t dream of letting another physician near a patient with a complication. The first thing they are going to do is ingratiate themselves to the patient by agreeing with them that you are, indeed, a very bad doctor. The fact that abortionists do not want to manage their own complications tells you everything you need to know.
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