more Texas laws about the unborn

[Malcolm]

Virginia governor vetoes PP blocking bill.

Supporters of the legislation said it’s needed to ensure state funds go to “more comprehensive providers” of health care services.

“The governor is clearly listening to his friends in the abortion lobby, rather than ensuring that women have access to quality care,” said Del. Ben Cline, the measure’s sponsor.

Right. In response to this and other equally insane state abortion regs, here's an idea for a new law: every priest of any faith has to have a PhD in psychiatry (psychology isn't good enough) with at least five years of clinical or professional experience. If they're supposed to be counseling people in times of distress, then we have to be sure to protect the mental safety of those involved and make sure the flock isn't just a huge congregation of schizos. If your church can't field someone like that, I guess we'll shut your ass down and you can drive 100 miles both ways every week to go worship.



Edited By Malcolm on 1459271684

[Malcolm]

Oklahoma more or less bans abortions.

Oklahoma lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill making it a felony for doctors to perform abortions, which opponents say is essentially a ban on the procedure.

Coat hangers are still pending Oklahoma legislature approval.

[Alhazad]

Oklahoma more or less bans abortions.

Oklahoma lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill making it a felony for doctors to perform abortions, which opponents say is essentially a ban on the procedure.

Coat hangers are still pending Oklahoma legislature approval.

which opponents say is essentially a ban on the procedure.

What the fuck is this John Madden verbal diarrhea?

"Dude, when you make something a felony, that's like making it illegal!"

[Malcolm]

Oklahoma more or less bans abortions.

Oklahoma lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill making it a felony for doctors to perform abortions, which opponents say is essentially a ban on the procedure.

Coat hangers are still pending Oklahoma legislature approval.

which opponents say is essentially a ban on the procedure.

What the fuck is this John Madden verbal diarrhea?

"Dude, when you make something a felony, that's like making it illegal!"

I suddenly want him to do a play-by-play for legislative sessions.

[Malcolm]

Texas intentionally holds back abortion statistics.

The court previously defined an illegal "undue burden" as "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus." That's what makes information about the potential effect of the law so crucial, and it's why public health researchers and advocates are anxious to see Texas' data from 2014, the first full year the admitting privileges requirement was in effect.

So people want to see Texas data from 2014.

"The data is not final. If the data were final, we would release it. We hope to have it finalized soon," said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the department.

Texas says it's not ready.

But according to the state employee, who provided emails and screenshots to NBC News that appear to corroborate the timeline, the abortion statistics were in the final stages months ago. In fact, according to this individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of ongoing employment there, in December 2015, researchers in the relevant department were actually told to get the information ready sooner than the usual 15 months.

Turns out Texas had it ready months ago. Why does this matter? As previously discussed in this thread, they have some psychotic restrictions on abortion because they continue to see Roe v. Wade as "optional."

Texas officials have told the courts that their intention was not to make abortion harder to access — which would almost certainly render the law unconstitutional — but rather to protect women's health.

For this bullshit reason.

Crucial to the question of whether the law advances women's health, the researchers also found a "small but significant increase in the proportion of abortions that are second trimester," according to Grossman, suggesting women were facing longer waits or other hurdles.

Which causes longer waits to get into clinics, which causes potential complications with abortions that take place later on. You'll note that's the polar opposite of "protecting women's health."

Then there's this.

A separate provision of the law, not before the court, specifically restricted the method Kennedy referred to as "medical procedures," or medication abortion. Women had to make up to four separate visits to a clinic, faced a smaller window of availability, and a higher, potentially riskier dosage of the pills involved. For women whose nearby clinics have closed, the additional visits in particular would have posed a potentially unconstitutional burden.

And this.

As for the geographical data, clinics in El Paso, Brownsville and McAllen, all along the Mexican border, closed when their doctors were unable to comply with the admitting privileges portion of the law. The clinics argued in their challenge that the law specifically burdened the disproportionately low-income and Latina residents there.

Nothing says "cares about your health" like "closing down medical clinics."

[Malcolm]

5-3 decision says Texas's abortion laws are full of shit.

"There was no significant health-related problem that the new law helped to cure," Breyer wrote. "We agree with the District Court that the surgical-center requirement, like the admitting-privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions, and constitutes an "undue burden" on their constitutional right to do so."

[Vince]

Democrats: "All women deserve access to safe abortion facilities."

State of Texas: "OK."

SCOTUS: "Whoa! Not *that* safe."

[TPRJones]

Yeah, right.

This was the equivalent of requiring that all guns have their barrels permanently welded shut so that they can't accidentally kill anyone and still claiming our 2nd amendment rights weren't being infringed.

[Vince]

Actually, reading through the requirements... no they aren't. They seemed consummately reasonable to me for any facility that's providing a medical procedure. At this point I think we can call bullshit on the claim that liberals fear women will have to return to backalley abortions since they have no desire to stop them now.

[TPRJones]

Every physician I've heard talk about the requirements say they are absurd. Some are downright impossible. For example most hospitals don't grant admitting privileges to doctors that work at abortion clinics. Partly for insurance reasons (it costs lots of money to put someone on the list so unless they work there they won't do it; think of it as being required to pay automotive insurance on everyone that is allowed to enter your house even if they won't be driving your cars), but mostly because it's not needed. If there's some sort of emergency that requires admission to a hospital they send them there and get them in even without the admitting privileges.

[Vince]

Every physician I've heard talk about the requirements say they are absurd. Some are downright impossible. For example most hospitals don't grant admitting privileges to doctors that work at abortion clinics.

Obviously not too impossible, as nine abortion clinics remained open under these laws. Seeing as Texas about 1000 hospital admissions from complications due to abortions every year, there is obviously a problem there.

[TPRJones]

Not really. The problem would be if there weren't 1000 admissions because they weren't able to admit. But that's just not how it usually works.

Nine clinics had doctors that were also practicing physicians at their local hospital. Nine clinics may sound like a lot to you small staters, but it's not nearly enough for a state as big as Texas.

EDIT: If we were talking about women being butchered in botched abortions then I could see a need for some additional governmental interference although I'd hate it and want it to go away as soon as feasible. But that wasn't the case at all (although it will be for some as they turn to illegal abortions and at-home self mutilation as their only remaining options). Frankly I'm surprised at you championing more governmental power; I didn't know you were a big government sort of guy. Regardless, this wasn't about protecting women, it was about protecting "babies" that aren't yet babies.

[Malcolm]

Obviously not too impossible, as nine abortion clinics remained open under these laws.

Horseshit. Nine clinics isn't enough for over a quarter million square miles. Those nine are doing Rube Goldberg backflips through several flaming hoops to make it happen, too.

[Vince]

I was mistaken. Out of 42 original clinic before the law was enacted, 19 remained open. So at a rate of almost 50%, I stand by my assertion that it isn't nearly as difficult as the opponents like to pretend.

In the end, I find I don't care. I feel bad for the women in TX. From all appearances, it really looks like they were trying to avoid some of the horror show scenarios that have been popping up in VA. In the end no one I care about is going to have to deal with it, so if stupid liberals want to continue to place their trust in folks that don't care that their abortion provider has less stringent rules than their local butcher shop... so be it. Thinning out the gene pool of stupid.

[GORDON]

"we require the coat hangers to be sterile."

TEXAN WAR ON WOMEN slash vote for me

[Vince]

Also, my read is that there were two laws. One dealing with hospital admittance and one for health care standards (sterilizing equipment, etc). The baby butcher shop proponents challenged them both. So there's that. Liberals support back alley abortions.

[Malcolm]

Hey, it's Indiana again, trying to do a legislative end run around federal law.

A federal judge blocked an Indiana law Thursday that would have banned abortions sought because of a fetus' genetic abnormalities, saying that the state does not have the authority to limit a woman's reasons for ending a pregnancy.

But wait, there's more.

The lawsuit also challenges the law's provision requiring that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated.

And because that's not enough...

Indiana University has filed a separate federal lawsuit challenging a section of the new law making it a crime to sell or acquire fetal issue. The school argues the provision would illegally interfere with research by its scientists.

[Vince]

I heard someone challenge Texas to just go ahead an enforce their health standards laws. If the state government of Texas enforces them, what will happen? Interesting thought exercise.

[Malcolm]

They're still violating federal statutes if they try to pull this again.

[TPRJones]

If the state government of Texas enforces them, what will happen?

Well, the implications for individual citizens begin immediately. Some clinics get forcefully (and illegally) shut down. Some women end up being forced to have a kid they don't want that ruins their life - such as it was, anyway. Some resort to using coat hangers, and that probably won't go well.

As for the state they'll be in violation of the constitution. So technically it would be up to the DoJ to enforce that. If they choose not to then there won't be any consequences to the state until after someone sues state for damages of some sort. There's no way to predict how bad that could get. In the medium term they'll also have to picking up the tab on housing and raising the increased number of abandoned children and dealing with the health-care problems of women suffering from the damages caused by those coat hanger abortions. Or if they don't want to pay for any of that they'll at least have to pay to deal with the corpses once those children and women die off and no one claims the bodies.

For society as a whole the longer term effects don't hit for about fifteen years. That's when the tens of thousands of unwanted children that grew up being neglected and/or actively mistreated by their resentful parents start to really jam up the judicial system and fill up the prisons.

Other than that there shouldn't be any problems.