20 states are poised to ban abortion

More from NPR on the Missouri one-abortion-clinic situation:

In 2008, Missouri had five abortion clinics, according to Planned Parenthood. The Columbia Health Center in central Missouri on Wednesday became the latest to stop providing abortions.

I don’t even understand this. Don’t big hospitals do abortions? If not, why not? Abortions should be a normal part of health care, not a rare bespoke luxury that only a few can have. As I mentioned, Missouri is not a small state, and five clinics is ludicrously inadequate.

Under the new requirements, abortion providers must secure admitting privileges at hospitals located within about 15 minutes from their health centers.

“The idea behind that restriction is that it somehow makes patients safer if they experience complications from the abortion,” Planned Parenthood Great Plains spokeswoman Emily Miller tells NPR. “But in reality, abortion is already incredibly safe, and a patient’s ability to access help at the hospital is the same, whether or not the provider has admitting privileges.”

Miller says that Columbia Health Center’s physician had her privileges revoked in 2015 by University Hospital and has been denied privileges by the other surrounding hospitals. “They won’t offer her admitting privileges because she’s an abortion provider,” Miller says.

So hospitals in the Columbia area do refuse to do abortions, and not satisfied with that, they prevent other doctors from doing them. Some of that will be because they are Catholic hospitals (and that should be illegal), but what about the others?

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that similar restrictions imposed in Texas were medically unnecessary.

And a ruling like that will not happen again for generations.

Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against Missouri’s requirements in November 2016 and a legal battle has ensued. A federal appeals court ruled in September that Missouri could enforce state laws. The judges issued a mandate for the requirements to take effect Monday.

“No abortions for you, bitches. Hold still while I pin you to this bed and nearly suffocate you.”

Missouri is not the only state where a single facility provides abortions to women. Other states include Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Mississippi, according to a 2014 report by the Guttmacher Institute. Nor is 2018 the first time that Missouri fell into this category.

Samuel Lee, a lobbyist who has spent years campaigning for abortion restrictions in Missouri, said he thinks “when the district court looks at it again, they will uphold the law because it protects the health and safety of women who are seeking abortions in Missouri without imposing an undue burden on them,” according to The Kansas City Star.

Planned Parenthood said Wednesday that 20 states are “poised to ban abortion” if Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court — and that 13 abortion cases are “one step away” from the country’s highest court.

Forced childbearing for all.

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