Reprinted from Baptist Press (www.baptistpress.com), news service of the Southern Baptist Convention. One requires all abortion clinics in the state to meet the standards for “ambulatory surgical centers,” including regulations concerning buildings, equipment and staffing. “If this case is not taken by the Supreme Court, it’s going to allow a continuation of the closing of clinics by these sneaky, underhanded methods”. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. voting to deny the stay.
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The justices voted 5-4 to grant an emergency appeal from Texas clinics after the 5th USA Circuit Court of Appeals upheld new clinic regulations and refused to keep regulations on hold while clinics appealed to the high court.
At the time of the law’s enactment, 41 licensed abortion providers existed throughout the state. “We now need the Court to clarify that medical evidence matters and that the Constitution does not allow states to rely on sham justifications to for shutting down clinics and prohibiting abortion”.
The Supreme Court will likely announce at the outset of its next session if it will hear a challenge to the Fifth Circuit’s ruling.
Kansas was the first state in the nation to ban the dilation and extraction (D&E) procedure, the most common form of second-trimester abortions.
The case involves the board’s 2013 rule that would have banned use of a controversial telemedicine system Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s urban doctors use to dispense abortion pills to women in rural clinics.
Texas legislators argue that the standards were placed to ensure the safety of women. The state’s lawyers will defend the law when Hendricks hears the full case later this year.
There are presently 19 abortion clinics operating in Texas.
The Supreme Court previously intervened in the abortion lawsuit.
Iowa’s webcam, or “telemed”, abortions had enabled doctors to prescribe the RU-486 abortion pill regimen by teleconference.
Fair Housing: Civil rights activists won their case against the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, which was charged with contributing to “segregated housing patterns by allocating too many tax credits to housing in predominantly black inner-city areas and too few in predominantly white suburban neighborhoods”. Last year, an Iowa district judge upheld the ban.
Members of security stand outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, Monday June 29, 2015. More than 7,200 Iowa women have used the system since it was launched in 2008. For many of those that can make it to a center that will still perform abortions, they will have to also pay to stay overnight somewhere nearby, because they’ll have had to travel too far to simply drive home and return the next day – which is the requirement already in place as a result of the state’s mandatory sonogram and 24-hour waiting period requirements.
“It was a tiny bit of a shock that the Supreme Court would put it on hold”, Seago said.
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“The abortion industry cares only for their bottom line, and women and their prenatal children are merely dollar signs in their business cycle”, she added. One option would be to ask the Iowa Supreme Court to rehear the case – which could be a way for the board to try to present new facts before the justices.
