Quote: (06-29-2016 01:23 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:
Quote: (06-29-2016 12:47 PM)Sp5 Wrote:
Quote: (06-29-2016 05:28 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:
Umm, well, not exactly:
Quote:Quote:
HB2 is a statute requiring abortion doctors in the Lone Star State to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their abortion clinic. The state law also requires every abortion facility to meet the equipment and sanitation standards of an ambulatory surgical center.
None of this is arbitrary or unreasonable. You want the physician performing the abortion to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals so that if anything goes wrong with the abortion he is able to quickly coordinate a transfer to a higher acuity setting (the hospital).
Furthermore, abortion is a minor surgery with a very real risk of complication. Why should abortion clinics be allowed to have laxer sanitation and equipment standards than other medical facilities that carry out minor surgeries? This law is not creating punitive regulations against abortion clinics: it is merely trying to remove the singular privilege abortion clinics enjoy of being able to escape any and all standards that apply to other medical facilities. What justification is there for abortion clinics being able to have laxer standards than colonoscopy suites aside from ideological "muh body" hysteria?
Your analogy falls flat.
We do have gun shop robberies and burglaries, and a threat of terrorism, so it's not "arbitrary or unreasonable" to have gun shops seriously fortified, either.
The risk from a terrorist raid on a gun shop is substantially greater than from a single abortion gone wrong: 100s could be killed. I'm not arguing that they be so fortified, but . . . .
Somehow, the other 49 states had abortion clinics without these requirements. Neither Texas nor the friends of the statute were able to show deaths from the lack of the nearby admitting privileges or having the equipment for a surgical clinic.
Just goes to show, depends on who's speaking, whose rights are being interfered with.
You are completely ignoring the point that this legislation did not create arbitrary and unreasonable regulations on abortion clinics. There already exist regulations on facilities that carry out minor surgeries. Is abortion a minor surgery? Yes. Is it perfectly reasonable to ask for abortion clinics to comply with the same set of standards that already exist for other similar medical facilities? Yes.
Your analogy with gun shops is not remotely comparable, because it creates arbitrary standards out of thin air. Not only that, but it places an onus on gun shops to take precautions against the hypothetical actions of third parties. In contrast, medical regulations set standards on the day to day actions of the regulated party itself.
In other words, you arbitrarily say that your standards are reasonable, and my standards are arbitrary. OK.
The District Court and the Supreme Court disagree with you. They found that the law created an undue burden on the exercise of a constitutional right. That was after extensive testimony and other evidence.
Did you read the opinion? First there was evidence showing the low rate of complications and the infintesimally small amounts of complications requiring hospital care. Second, there was evidence that local hospitals in small town Bible-beating areas would not give abortion doctors admitting privileges.
The admitting privileges rule was a clever idea to keep abortion clinics out of small towns and cities in Texas. First, the hospitals would not give admitting privileges for reasons unrelated to competence of the doctors. Second, even if they did, the local churches would rally members to picket/harass the doctors and their families.
Like with the Brock Turner thread, this thread is full of non-lawyers getting their opinions on law from inflammatory political sites instead of the rulings and evidence. The doctrine of undue burden goes back many years, and has been applied to the First Amendment as well.