A woman’s constitutional right
21st January 2020 · 0 Comments
Oops, we did it again! Louisiana punched itself in the eye when the state’s so-called “pro-life” Republican-led legislature passed a 2014 bill and signed into law by then-Governor Bobby Jindal as ACT 620, requiring abortion providers to secure admitting privileges at a local hospital, within 30 miles of the abortion clinic.
The GOP-led Louisiana Legislature’s passage of anti-abortion laws is just another black eye in a state that just got called out by the U.S. Supreme Court for keeping its non-unanimous jury slave era law intact and sending thousands of people of color to jail based on discriminatory non-unanimous juries.
Now the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on March 4, 2020, in June Medical Services v. Gee, a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights that challenges ACT 620, which is designed to close clinics and undermine access to abortion. The law is identical to a Texas law struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt—a case brought and won by the Center in 2016.
If the U.S. Supreme Court allows ACT 620 to be enacted, it will become the most restrictive abortion law in the nation and make it nearly impossible for Louisiana women to get abortions.
The Center for Reproductive Rights argues that the hospital requirements will deny most of Louisiana’s abortion providers the ability to obtain admitting privileges because the requirements are discretionary. Moreover, abortion providers work doesn’t require the same credentials or activities as admitting physicians because abortion is an outpatient procedure.
According to the Center, “To secure admitting privileges, a physician first must be recommended and approved for membership on a hospital’s medical staff (“credentialing”). Only then is a physician granted authority to admit patients and perform specific procedures (“privileging”). Credentialing and privileging require physicians to meet pre-qualification criteria before hospitals even provide applications. Most outpatient providers never have the opportunity to apply for credentials and privileges because they are barred by pre-qualification criteria.”
“As the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana (‘District Court’) explained: Hospitals may deny privileges or decline to consider an application for privileges for myriad reasons unrelated to competency. Examples include the physician’s expected usage of the hospital and intent to admit and treat patients there, the number of patients the physician has treated in the hospital in the recent past, the needs of the hospital, the mission of the hospital, or the business model of the hospital.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is joined by 27 medical and human and civil rights organizations in opposition to ACT 620, says if allowed to be enacted, ACT 620 will be the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., in addition to other Louisiana anti-abortion laws on the books.
Currently, nearly half (45 percent) of women in Louisiana must travel more than 50 miles to reach one of the state’s existing three clinics that provides abortions. The burdens associated with travel distances are compounded by Louisiana’s mandatory delay law, which effectively requires patients to make at least two trips to the clinic over multiple days.
So, Louisiana is, once again, on the wrong side of a woman’s constitutional right to control her own body.
Louisiana was the fifth state in 2019 to enact a prohibition on abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected. Claiming to be a pro-lifer, Governor John Bel Edwards signed the bill, now ACT 31 into law. The law makes no exception for rape or incest and prohibits abortions after six-week of gestation. However, Louisiana’s law only begins if Mississippi’s similar law, which is currently blocked by a federal judge, is upheld by a federal appeals court.
In May 2019, when Mississippi federal Judge Carlton Reeves ruled against the state’s abortion bill, he said the law “threatens immediate harm to women’s rights, especially considering most women do not seek abortions services until after six weeks.”
Last year, 25 new abortion bans had been signed into law, primarily in the South and Midwest and 58 new abortion restrictions enacted in 2019 would ban all, most or some abortions.
But the real question is, why is the United States government and state governments legislating what goes on in a woman’s body?
The bottom line is the GOP-led Louisiana Legislature should stay out of women’s bodies and handle the people’s business. There are plenty of problems they must attend.
The Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University (JSRI) just published a social indicators report comparing the 50 states on measures of racial, economic, and immigrant justice. Guess which state came in last? (Hint: you’re living in that state now.)
This article originally published in the January 20, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
