Federal judges upheld a sweeping anti-abortion law on Tuesday in a decision that will shutter most abortion clinics in Texas.
The ruling held that the law, HB 2, which requires abortion facilities to comply with hospital-like standards, does not pose an undue burden for the majority of women seeking abortion in Texas, millions of whom will now have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion.
The law calls for clinics to follow the state's rules for ambulatory surgical centers, facilities that are very costly to operate. In 2013, Planned Parenthood opened a brand-new ASC in Forth Worth at a cost of $6.5 million. Only seven abortion clinics in Texas comply with ASC standards; 13 other clinics face imminent closure.
Whole Woman's Health, the plaintiff in the case, vowed to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court and to ask the justices to put the ruling on hold immediately. Unless the Supreme Court steps in, the clinics will be forced to close in 22 days. The case, if it goes before the high court, could result in a definitive ruling on when an abortion restriction is too restrictive and constitutes an "undue burden."
"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrup, the CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents Whole Woman's Health in the lawsuit.
The ruling is a broad victory for Texas on what most consider the most restrictive abortion law in the country: Other provisions of HB 2, which were not a part of Tuesday's ruling, have already closed more than 20 abortion providers across the state. Judges were drawn from the most conservative appeals court in the country, US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio are the only cities which have abortion clinics that comply with the ASC standards If the decision goes into effect, more than 1.3 million women of reproductive age in Texas will live 100 miles or more from the nearest abortion clinic. Three-quarters of a million women will live 200 miles away or more. The westernmost clinic in Texas will be located San Antonio, leaving a swath of Texas 550 miles wide without an abortion provider. El Paso, at the western tip of the state, will become the largest US city without an abortion provider.
The ruling also exempts a clinic in McAllen—temporarily—from a portion of the law that requires abortion clinics to have admitting privileges with local hospitals. The McAllen clinic failed to acquire admitting privileges for administrative reasons and was facing immediate closure. It is the only abortion provider in the Rio Grande Valley—the next closest clinic is 200 miles away. For this reason, the judges ruled that the McAllen Whole Woman's Health can remain open until another abortion clinic opens nearby.
The Supreme Court is currently debating whether to consider a challenge to a Mississippi law requiring similar admitting privileges.
Abortion foes cheered Tuesday's decision. Americans United for Life, the legal arm of the anti-abortion movement, said in a statement that the ruling "advances Texas' interests in safeguarding maternal health and protecting women from substandard abortion facilities and practices."
They should be living a billion miles away from a murdering little babies abortion clinic.
ReplyDeleteAmen mattfourfour: Partial Birth Abortion: When a baby is at full term and starts to birth, as the child is exiting the mothers womb naturally; as the child's head emerges an incision or hole is drilled into the brain and the child's brains are sucked out.
ReplyDeleteThis, by law is called a partial birth abortion, by law since the child is not wholly born this method is legal and is simply looked at as a late term abortion.
What kind of people, or nation, would allow such a horrendous demonic practice such as this, not that a regular abortion is any less satanic, but a nation that has lost its moral compass, a nation that is destined for an apocalyptic punishment, a nation that that is committing moral suicide:
- Abortion: Where a "mother" allows the murder of the child in her own womb.
- Pornography: In near all home movies, and found near everywhere in society.
- Immodesty in dress: Mothers and daughters dressing half naked like primitive pagan whores, rift with pagan tattoo's, body piercings and jewelry, and emasculated Fathers allowing their women to present themselves as such without shame.
- Contraception: A form of abortion and a refusal to participate in the natural laws of God.
- Corruption: From the highest office in the nation down to the lowest citizen, on a scale never imagined in history, where justice, honesty, integrity, moral rightness, have all but disappeared in a nation now run by its demon's.
It is indeed a good thing to eliminate the words "In God We Trust" and "God Bless American" from our national pledges and sayings - for this country no longer believes in a God, nor would God ever bless a country that has become so demonic.
So, when the SHTF, shortly, when terror will overcome every single person in this country, when the horrors of their actions come back to visit them, how many will then fall on their knees and beg God for mercy?
They laughed at Noah as he built his Ark for 100 years. They laughed when it started to rain, they laughed as it rained and rained, and very slowly their laughter began to subside; and then some, just some, in their last moments, as they stood on the last few yards of earth before drowning, thought : Noah was right, there is a God, and a God that now punishes us for our sins.
Congratulations Texas!!! Anything to shut down the baby killing industry. Those people are monster. Wars of mass slaugher and non stop baby killing is why whitie is being kicked off the north american continent.
ReplyDeleteIf all conceptions were immaculate, abortions wouldn't be necessary.
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