Massachusetts lawmakers passed a new law to restrict pro-life protesters who would be outside an abortion clinic after the Supreme Court struck down their previous law.
The new law, which is titled An Act to Promote Public Safety and Protect Access to Reproductive Health Care Facilities”, will now allow police to break up any protest that the police say are “impeding access” to an abortion clinic and then ban anyone at the protest from being within 25 feet of a clinic for 8 hours.
The governor said he was “proud to sign” the bill that can allow police to bully those who believe in the value of life.
The law will be challenged in court by pro-life groups.
“We are deeply disturbed at this legislature’s efforts to silence the voices of those they disagree with. We thank those legislators who voted against this new legislation, and we will closely monitor how this law is being carried out,” stated Massachusetts Citizens For Life. “Rest assured that Massachusetts Citizens For Life will be doing everything in its power to ensure that the voices of pro-life individuals are protected.”
A Mississippi law that would have shut down the state last abortion clinic was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court even though it had the same provisions as other states where the constitutionality was upheld.
A three judge panel with the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that the law was unconstitutional because it would mean women would need to travel to another state to kill their babies via abortion. That, the court said, would cause an “undue burden” on the women who wanted to end their child’s life.
The court also said the state is “obligated” to uphold the “right” for women to kill their babies via abortion.
The Mississippi law was modeled on a Texas law that requires all abortion clinics to have abortionists with admitting privileges at a local hospital should a complication arise during the procedure. All hospitals in the area of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization had refused to work with the abortionists.
The judge who dissented in the case said states are not required by the Constitution to provide abortion clinics, but rather to ensure the safety of anyone that wanted to operate a clinic within their state.
Notorious late-term abortionist Dennis Christensen of Wisconsin is trying to find a replacement for him at his clinic as a law that is on hold because of a judge threatens to put his clinic out of business.
The law, passed by the Wisconsin legislature 2013 and signed by Governor Scott Walker, would require all doctors who end babies lives via abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their abortion clinic. The law has been on hold because of U.S. District Judge William Conley pending a decision in the challenge to the law.
Christensen says that he and his partner Bernard Smith have been denied privileges at all the hospitals within 30 miles of their clinic, Affiliated Medical Services of Milwaukee. Should the judge refuse to strike down the law, the clinic would be forced to immediately close.
Christiansen says that he’s been turned down because he hasn’t treated an abortion patient in a hospital setting in over a decade. He told a judge that because his patients haven’t been in the hospital, it’s been a detriment to his gain privileges.
However, pro-life organization 40 Days for Life says the abortionist was lying to the judge. They have been tracking ambulance calls and say that nine times there were calls from the clinic. Four of the women who were then rushed to a hospital had to have emergency hysterectomies that they blame on the abortionist.
Christiansen’s other clinic in Illinois was shut down because the surgical equipment was sanitized and conditions were considered “not to be a sanitary environment.”
Northern Alabama will be without any abortion clinics as of June 27th.
Alabama Women’s Center is voluntarily shutting its doors because they cannot meet the requirements of the state’s new abortion law which goes into effect on July 1.
The Alabama Women’s Health and Safety Act, which passed in April 2013, stipulates that doctors working at abortion clinics in the state have hospital admitting privileges in the same city where they perform abortions. Also, all abortion clinics must meet the same safety standards as ambulatory surgical centers.
The standards include making sure hallways are wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs and patient gurneys. Failure to meet the requirements would mean the state health department must revoke the clinic’s license.
The clinic’s owners say they hope to be able to reopen their clinic in the future at a different location that meets the state requirements for women’s health and safety.
The abortionist called the “Gosnell of Texas” in reference to convicted murder Kermit Gosnell who killed babies born alive has been shut out of performing abortions in Texas.
Douglas Karpen has been unable to obtain admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of his clinics, effectively banning him from performing the abortion procedures. However, the clinics have found other abortionists with privileges allowing the centers to continue to end the lives of babies via abortion.
Former employees of Karpen’s clinics have come forward to report multiple times that Karpen has killed babies born alive in his clinics. They report he has also violated the laws against late-term abortions.
Harris County District Attorney’s office officials said that they did not find enough evidence at the clinics to back the allegations. However, unlike Pennsylvania authorities that raided the clinics of Gosnell before announcing the investigation, Texas officials announced it first so Karpen knew the searches would be coming.
Karpen and his staff reportedly spent the time between the announcement and the raid cleaning up the facilities and disposing of evidence.
Karpen is currently defending against a lawsuit filed by a woman who claims that he ruptured her uterus during a late-term abortion in February 2013 and then did not tell her about the life-threatening mistake.
A woman who brought the lives of thousands of babies to an end during her over ten years running a Florida abortion clinic has walked away and dedicated her life to Christ.
The woman, who has only been identified as Terri, accepted Christ after stopping and talking with the protesters that had been standing outside her clinic for years.
“I thought she was going to be angry or something,” John Barros told Christian News Network.
After speaking with the pro-life counselors that Barros’ ministry brought to speak to the women in an attempt to have them keep their babies, she began to see the great error of her beliefs in abortion and her decade of promoting it.
“She’s really showing repentance and she’s really broken up over what she’s done,” Barros explained. “At one point she said, ‘I can’t do enough to erase this. And I said, ‘None of us can. 1st John tells us that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, and that includes what you’ve done.’”
Terri quit her job, severed all ties with the clinic and has told friends and family that she renounces all of her work in ending the lives of babies.
“I dedicate my life to Christ and I thank Him—believe it or not—every day that I am no longer affiliated with a clinic,” she stated. “It’s a wonderful thing that I got out of there. I thank God every day I’m gone.”
Louisiana has become the latest state to pass laws aimed at requiring abortion clinics to have safe conditions on the level of other major medical facilities.
One of those requirements is for abortionists to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the abortion clinic.
House Bill 388 reads: “On the date the abortion is performed or induced, a physician performing or inducing an abortion shall have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced and that provides obstetrical or gynecological health care services.”
The law passed the House of Representatives 88-5 after passing the Senate 34-3 earlier this month.
Governor Bobby Jindal said he’s looking forward to signing the bill.
The law reportedly will force three of the state’s five abortion clinics to close.
An abortion clinic in Dallas has closed after the abortionist was unable to secure admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
The closure marks the 20th abortion clinic in the state to close since the passage of stronger legislation regarding the cleanliness and safety of abortion clinics. The law also increased the conditions for welfare of women who choose to end their child’s lives in those clinics.
The closed clinic was associated with abortionist Douglas Karpen, who has been accused of killing babies born alive during late-term abortions similar to convicted murder Kermit Gosnell in Pennsylvania.
A spokesman for Operation Rescue said that part of the problem for the clinics is that operators are considered liabilities for hospitals and that is why they’re having trouble obtaining privileges.
The next phase of the law goes into effect on September 1st that requires all abortion clinics to have the same safety and cleanliness standards as ambulatory surgical centers. The requirements include having equipment to properly sterilize equipment and ensuring the doors to the facility are wide enough to accommodate stretchers in the event of an emergency.
Representative Jason Villalba of Dallas said the law is a pro-woman law that aims to make sure any woman undergoing a surgical procedure is having it in a sanitary environment.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is about to decide if Mississippi will be the first state in the nation that will not have an abortion provider.
The court is considering a 2012 law that would require all abortion clinics that kill more than 10 babies per year via abortion to have physicians that are certified in obstetrics and gynecology and have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
The law was passed in April 2012 but pro-abortionists have been challenging the law in courts since passages. They were able to get a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction in 2013 saying it was likely unconstitutional because it would close the state’s only clinic.
Governor Phil Bryant said his intent to sign the law was to “make Mississippi abortion free.”
The 5th Circuit is the same court that upheld a Texas law with the same restrictions as the Mississippi law. That law closes all but six clinics in Texas.
The pro-abortionists say they will “fight to the end” to make sure women can kill their babies in Mississippi via abortion.
An investigation by the New York Post has discovered the New York State Health Department has been negligent in their inspections of the state’s abortion clinics.
The report says that some facilities have not been inspected for violations in over a decade. The report also says that only 25 centers that provide abortions are regulated by the health department while pro-abortion supporters say that there are 225 abortion providers within the state.
The inspection reports show that 8 of the 25 clinics were never inspected between 2000-2012. Five had only one inspection and another eight only two or three times in the 12-year span. In all, a total of only 45 inspections were held during the 12-year period.
By comparison, state law requires all restaurants to be inspected once a year and every tanning salon once every two years.
A state Health Department employee told the Post that some facilities that perform abortions are not required to list that service in their operating certificates. In the case of places that do list abortion as a service, only one clinic had a legal action taken in the last 12 years.