Tag Archives: Abortion

U.S. top court to hear dispute over California pregnancy center law

An activist holds a rosary while ralling against abortion outside City Hall in Los Angeles, California September 29, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether a California law requiring private facilities that counsel pregnant women against abortion to post signs telling clients how to get state-funded abortions and contraceptives violates free speech rights.

The justices will hear an appeal brought by Christian-based non-profit facilities sometimes called “crisis pregnancy centers” of a lower court ruling that upheld the Democratic-backed 2015 California law. The challengers argue that the law, by forcing them to post the information, violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

California argued that the Reproductive FACT Act, passed by a Democratic-led legislature and signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown, is justified by its responsibility to regulate the healthcare industry and is needed to ensure that women know the state has programs providing abortions and birth control.

The law requires licensed healthcare facilities to post a notice saying that the state has programs for “immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services … prenatal care, and abortion for eligible women.” For non-licensed medical facilities, an additional notice is required stating that the center “has no licensed medical provider who provides or directly supervises the provision of services.”

The facilities had asked the high court to hear their appeal of a ruling last year by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the law.

In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to similar law in New York City, although that case differed from the California dispute because the lower court had struck down several provisions, including one that required centers to disclose whether they provide abortions and other reproductive care.

The “crisis pregnancy centers” counsel women not to have abortions. These facilities, according to critics, often are located near hospitals and abortion clinics, offer ultrasounds and are staffed by people wearing medical garb. Some are medically licensed facilities, others are not.

Challengers included the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, an umbrella group for anti-abortion pregnancy crisis centers that said its members include 73 centers in California that are medically licensed and 38 that are not.

The other plaintiffs are two centers in San Diego County: Pregnancy Care Center and Fallbrook Pregnancy Resource Center. The court did not act on three other cases brought by other centers making similar claims.

The Supreme Court found that women have a constitutional right to an abortion in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade. The court most recently backed abortion rights in 2016 when it struck down a Texas law that imposed strict regulations on clinics that provided abortions.

 

 

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

 

Federal judge strikes down two abortion restrictions in Alabama

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday struck down two abortion restrictions in Alabama that limited how close clinics can be to public schools and banned a procedure used to terminate pregnancies in the second trimester.

The decision is a blow to abortion opponents in Alabama, who have joined conservatives in other states in enacting new laws that critics said were chipping away at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson in the Middle District of Alabama found the laws unconstitutional and permanently enjoined the state from enforcing the measures, which were signed into law in May 2016 by former Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, a Republican.

The same court last year temporarily blocked both measures in a preliminary injunction, which was under appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The school-proximity law banned clinics within 2,000 feet of a K-8 public school and was the only law of its kind in the United States. Thompson said it would likely have forced the closing of clinics in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, where 72 percent of the state’s abortions are performed.

The “fetal-demise law,” which effectively banned the most common method of second-trimester abortion, known as dilation and evacuation, would have prohibited abortions after 15 weeks, Thompson wrote.

“Because these laws clearly impose an impermissible undue burden on a woman’s ability to choose an abortion, they cannot stand,” he wrote.

The ACLU of Alabama had challenged the laws on behalf of two women’s health clinics in a state where abortion providers have faced what Thompson’s ruling called a “climate of hostility.”

“Both would have had a devastating impact on the ability of women to access abortion in Alabama,” said Randall Marshall, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama.

Alabama’s Attorney General and Republican Governor Kay Ivey’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S. state legislatures enacted 41 new abortion restrictions in the first half of 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health think tank that supports abortion rights.

Those laws have led to a spate of legal challenges in Alabama and elsewhere. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of a Texas law that required clinics to meet hospital-like standards and for clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; editing by Patrick Enright and Grant McCool)

Stricter Missouri abortion rules take effect after legal fight

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – New abortion regulations took effect on Tuesday in Missouri that critics argue will make it more difficult for women to access the procedure.

A judge on Monday declined to block a requirement that physicians performing abortions inform their patients about abortion risks at least 72 hours before their procedure. Previously, a different provider could give that mandated information.

That means repeat doctor visits for women seeking abortions, some of whom must travel hundreds of miles to reach one of Missouri’s three clinics, said Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Great Plains. There is also a shortage of abortion doctors, she said.

The organization had sued to stop the new regulations because of the provider requirement.

“This is about making it as difficult as possible to obtain an abortion,” Lee-Gilmore said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “Abortion access is chipped away one seemingly moderate restriction at a time.”

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley praised the law in a statement issued late on Monday, saying, “SB5 enacts sensible regulations that protect the health of women in Missouri and we will continue to vigorously defend these.”

The provider restriction was part of broader abortion regulations that went into effect on Monday after they were passed by Missouri lawmakers during a July special session called by Republican Governor Eric Greitens.

Among other things, the law gives the attorney general power to enforce abortion laws, requires annual surprise inspections of clinics and exempts pregnancy resource centers, which counsel against abortions, from a local St. Louis law banning employers from discriminating against those who have had an abortion. Critics of the St. Louis ordinance believed it could require the centers to hire workers who favor abortion rights.

The legislative session was called after a federal judge in April blocked requirements for clinics to meet standards for surgical centers and for doctors to have hospital privileges as unconstitutional barriers to access.

Since then, doctors in Missouri, formerly one of seven states down to only one clinic providing abortions, have begun offering them at three locations, in St. Louis, Columbia and Kansas City.

But the new regulation offsets the benefits of those new locations, Lee-Gilmore said.

U.S. state legislatures enacted 41 new abortion restrictions in the first half of 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health think tank that supports abortion rights.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; editing by Patrick Enright and Tom Brown)

UK Supreme Court hears attempt to change Northern Ireland abortion law

FILE PHOTO: Women gather in Parliament Square for a protest in support of legal abortion in Northern Ireland, and against a Tory coalition with the DUP, in central London, Britain, June 24, 2017. REUTERS/Marko Djurica/File Photo

By Estelle Shirbon

LONDON (Reuters) – An attempt to change the law in Northern Ireland to allow abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious malformation of the fetus started in the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday with harrowing accounts of women’s experiences.

A socially conservative province where the Catholic and Protestant faiths exert strong influence, Northern Ireland allows abortion only when a mother’s life is in danger. The penalty for undergoing or performing an unlawful abortion is life imprisonment.

As a result, women facing tragic circumstances such as a pregnancy resulting from rape or a diagnosis of fatal fetal abnormality, meaning that a baby will not survive outside the womb, have been forced to carry their pregnancies to term.

“The impact of the criminal law in Northern Ireland does amount to inhuman and degrading treatment by the state,” said Nathalie Lieven, lead counsel for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission which is spearheading the legal action.

The commission, an independent body, launched legal action against Northern Ireland’s government in 2014, arguing that the law violates the human rights of women and girls. The case has been working its way through the courts ever since.

A panel of seven Supreme Court judges in London will hear arguments for and against the proposed changes during a three-day hearing. They will give their judgment at a later date.

Lieven began by giving the judges an overview of detailed evidence provided by several women and girls.

One of them, Ashleigh Topley, was told when she was four-and-a-half months pregnant in 2013 that her baby’s limbs were not growing and she was going to die.

Topley was told there was nothing to be done and she had to carry on with the pregnancy until her baby died inside the womb, or until she went into labor which would cause the baby to die.

Topley had to endure 15 weeks of anguish as the pregnancy progressed. She has described how people would ask her if it was her first child, if she wanted a boy or a girl, and other well-meaning questions which exacerbated her suffering.

In the end, Topley went into labor at 35 weeks and the baby girl’s heart stopped.

Other cases described to the judges included that of a girl under 13 years old who was pregnant as a result of sexual abuse by a relative. After police and social services got involved, the distraught girl had to be taken outside of Northern Ireland for the first time in her life to have an abortion.

Northern Ireland’s elected assembly voted against changing abortion laws in February 2016.

The law is far less restrictive in the rest of the United Kingdom, and hundreds of Northern Irish women travel to England every year to have unwanted pregnancies terminated.

As well as the parties in the case, the court will hear from organizations that support changing the law, such as Humanists UK, Amnesty International and a United Nations working group on discrimination against women.

It will also hear from groups who oppose any reform, such as Catholic bishops from the province and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which describes the legal action as a “crusade against disabled babies”.

(This version of the story includes updates with details from the hearing)

(Reporting by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

ACLU sues over FDA restrictions on abortion pill access

FILE PHOTO: A view shows the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland August 14, 2012. Picture taken August 14, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to challenge U.S. Food and Drug Administration restrictions that limit the ability of women to access the so-called abortion pill.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Hawaii to challenge FDA restrictions that limit the dispensing of the pill, Mifeprex, to clinics, medical offices or hospitals rather than retail pharmacies.

The ACLU said that as a result, the FDA’s restrictions delay and in some cases block a woman’s access to abortion by requiring her to be handed Mifeprex by healthcare providers who have arranged to stock it in their facilities.

That is despite the fact that Mifeprex, which can be used for abortions up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy, is considered safe and has been recognized by the FDA itself as providing “meaningful therapeutic benefit,” the lawsuit said.

“The unique and harmful restrictions the FDA imposes on where and how a patient may receive Mifeprex deny women meaningful access to this safe and effective treatment with no medical justification,” the complaint said.

The FDA declined to comment.

Mifeprex, manufactured by Danco Laboratories, was approved in 2000 to terminate early pregnancy when given in combination with misoprostol, an anti-inflammatory drug that was originally approved to prevent gastric ulcers.

The lawsuit came after the FDA in March 2016 announced a decision to relax restrictions on the use of Mifeprex that were in place for over a decade.

The FDA eased access to it by updating the prescribing information on the drug’s label, thus expanding use to 70 days of gestation from 49 days, cutting the recommended dose of the drug and reducing the number of required visits to a doctor.

The ACLU filed its lawsuit on behalf of three healthcare associations and a family medicine doctor, Graham Chelius, who is based on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, which has no abortion providers.

According to the ACLU, while Chelius is qualified and willing to provide the pill, he cannot stock it at the hospital where he works due to objections from some colleagues and as a result his patients must fly to another island for abortions.

To support its case, the ACLU cited a June 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a Texas abortion law imposing strict regulations on doctors and facilities.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Illinois Republican governor signs controversial abortion bill

FILE PHOTO - Bruce Rauner talks to the media at the White House in Washington December 5, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

By Chris Kenning

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Illinois Republican Governor Bruce Rauner signed a controversial bill into law on Thursday to expand state-funded coverage of abortions for low-income residents on Medicaid and state employees.

The bill, approved by the state legislature in May, would also keep abortions legal in Illinois if the U.S. Supreme Court follows President Donald Trump’s call to overturn its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that made abortions legal 44 years ago.

Illinois’ Medicaid program has previously covered abortions in cases of rape, incest and when a mother’s life or health is threatened.

The expansion would enable poor women to obtain elective abortions. The bill would allow state employees to have the procedures covered under state health insurance.

Rauner, who had earlier suggested he would veto the measure, said in a statement that he had talked to woman around the state before making his decision.

“I understand abortion is a very emotional issue with passionate opinions on both sides. I sincerely respect those who believe abortion is morally wrong,” he said.

“But, as I have always said, I believe a woman should have the right to make that choice herself and I do not believe that choice should be determined by income,” Rauner added. “I do not think it’s fair to deny poor women the choice that wealthy women have.”

The decision comes as conservative legislatures and other Republican governors have sought in recent years to tighten regulations on abortion clinics and forced closures in states such as Texas and Kentucky.

The move by Rauner upset conservatives.

“Taxpayers should not be forced to fund something as controversial and culturally divisive as abortions,” Republican state Senator Dan McConchie told the Chicago Tribune.

Currently, 15 other states allow Medicaid to pay for abortion, including some required by courts, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But Illinois is the first state in decades to voluntarily lift its restriction on Medicaid coverage of abortion, according to National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum.

“Under the Trump administration, we are potentially facing the greatest threat to reproductive rights in more than a generation. HB 40 ensures that abortion will remain legal in Illinois, regardless of what happens at the federal level,” the forum’s executive director, Sung Yeon Choimorrow, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Diane Craft)

Federal court strikes down abortion ultrasound law in Kentucky

(Reuters) – A federal court struck down a law in Kentucky on Wednesday that requires women seeking an abortion to first undergo an ultrasound and hear a description of the embryo or fetus.

The U.S. District Court Western District of Kentucky ruled that the state law is unconstitutional because it violates the free-speech rights of the patient and doctor, court documents showed.

The law “does not advance a substantial governmental interest, is not drawn to achieve the government’s interests, and prevents no actual harm,” U.S. District Judge David Hale wrote in his ruling.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit against the state on behalf of EMW Women’s Surgical Center, which the complaint said is the state’s sole licensed abortion facility, days after the measure was passed in January by Republican lawmakers in Kentucky.

“We are pleased that Kentucky women will no longer be subjected to this demeaning and degrading invasion into their personal health care decisions,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, an ACLU attorney, in a statement.

The law requires a physician or qualified technician to perform the ultrasound and position the screen so the woman may view the images. The medical staff were required to describe what the images show, including the size of the fetus and any organs or appendages visible.

The law does not contain exceptions for women who are facing medical complications or are victims of rape or incest.

The requirement violates the speech rights of doctors and patients by forcing them to deliver and listen to a government-mandated message, according to the lawsuit.

The law was part of a renewed effort by abortion opponents nationwide to restrict the procedure.

Some 26 states have laws regarding ultrasounds and abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive policy.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, editing by Larry King)

Fate of Kentucky’s last abortion clinic goes to judge

FILE PHOTO: Escorts who ensure women can reach the clinic lineup as they face off protesters outside the EMW Women's Surgical Center in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S. on January 27, 2017. P REUTERS/Chris Kenning/File Photo

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – The fate of Kentucky’s last remaining abortion clinic is in the hands of a federal judge following a three-day trial that could make it the first U.S. state without a single clinic.

Kentucky’s anti-abortion Republican governor, Matt Bevin, earlier this year moved to revoke the license of the EMW Women’s Surgical Center clinic in Louisville, citing deficiencies in its transfer agreements with local hospitals.

The clinic filed suit and was joined by Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, which said the state has used the same rules to block it from providing abortions in the city. The groups are asking U.S. District Judge Greg Stivers to overturn regulations they argue are medically unnecessary and create an unconstitutional barrier to abortion.

A ruling could take months, since both sides have 60 days to present post-trial briefs the judge.

“The state is trying to shut down the only abortion clinic in Kentucky by enforcing regulations that have nothing to do with women’s health,” EMW attorney Don Cox said during the trial according to WLKY-TV.

Lawyers for the Bevin administration, which waged a licensing battle in 2016 that led to the shutdown of a Lexington clinic, argued the transfer agreements in question were meant to protect women.

During the trial, a state health regulator blamed hospitals, saying they failed to provide sufficient agreements, the Courier-Journal reported. EMW and Planned Parenthood alleged the Bevin administration pressured or intimidated hospital officials into refusing to enter such agreements.

The trial has drawn anti-abortion activists and abortion rights demonstrators outside the courthouse in a city that has become a flashpoint for the debate over abortion.

If the court rules in the state’s favor and the clinic is forced to close, it would leave Kentucky the only U.S. state with no abortion provider. Six other states have only one clinic.

Conservative legislatures and Republican governors have sought in recent years to tighten regulations on abortion clinics and forced closures in states such as Texas.

But courts have pushed back. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down parts of a Texas law that required clinics to meet hospital-like standards and for clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

The American Civil Liberties Union is providing legal help to the Kentucky clinic.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by David Gregorio)

Kentucky trial could make state first in U.S. with no abortion clinic

Kentucky trial could make state first in U.S. with no abortion clinic

By Chris Kenning

(Reuters) – Kentucky’s “unapologetically pro-life” governor and the state’s last abortion clinic will square off on Wednesday in a federal courtroom in a case that could make it the first U.S. state without an abortion provider.

In a three-day trial, the state will argue before a U.S. District judge in Louisville that EMW Women’s Surgical Center does not have proper state-required agreements with a hospital and an ambulance service in case of medical emergencies.

The clinic, which earlier this year filed suit to stop the state from revoking its license, wants to overturn the regulations it says are unnecessary and create an unconstitutional barrier to abortion.

“In 37 years providing abortion, I’ve seen more than a dozen clinics close down in our state, and now ours is the last clinic standing in the entire state,” Ernest Marshall, a doctor and EMW clinic founder, said in a statement.

“The very right to access legal abortion in the state of Kentucky is on the line,” he added.

The case could test court interpretations of last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down parts of a Texas law that required clinics to meet hospital-like standards and for clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

Despite that ruling, conservative legislatures and Republican governors such as Kentucky’s Matt Bevin have continued to tighten new regulations on abortion clinics.

U.S. state legislatures enacted 41 new abortion restrictions in the first half of 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health think tank that supports abortion rights.

Abortion rights groups say that has reduced access to abortion, particularly in rural areas of the South and Midwest. Kentucky is among seven U.S. states with just one clinic left.

Bevin, whose administration waged a licensing battle in 2016 that led to the shutdown of a Lexington clinic, argued the transfer agreements in question were meant to protect women.

“It is telling that the abortion industry believes that it alone should be exempt from these important safety measures,” said Bevin spokeswoman Amanda Stamper.

EMW, which is the site of almost daily protests, argues that hospitals are already legally bound to accept any patient in an emergency and local EMS will transport patients without such agreements.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky joined the suit because it said the same transfer agreements were used to block a license for a facility in Louisville. The American Civil Liberties Union is providing legal help to the clinic.

(Reporting by Chris Kenning; Editing by Andrew Hay)

South Carolina governor bans abortion funding, hits healthcare

FILE PHOTO: Governor of South Carolina Henry McMaster speaks at 2017 SelectUSA Investment Summit in Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S., June 19, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – South Carolina’s governor has ordered a ban on all state funding for abortion providers in a move Planned Parenthood on Friday called “political” and an attack on patients’ access to preventive healthcare.

Republican Governor Henry McMaster’s executive order bars state agencies from providing funds to any doctor or medical practice affiliated with an abortion clinic and operating with a clinic in the same site, his office said in a statement.

McMaster said there were a variety of taxpayer-funded medical agencies that provided women’s health and family planning services without performing abortions.

“Taxpayer dollars must not directly or indirectly subsidize abortion providers like Planned Parenthood,” he said in the statement.

Planned Parenthood has long been a target of those opposed to its abortion services, which it provides along with cancer screenings, birth control and testing for sexually transmitted diseases.

In his order signed on Thursday, McMaster also directed the state agency for Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for the poor and disabled, to seek permission from the federal government to bar abortion clinics from the state’s Medicaid provider network.

Under McMaster’s order, abortion providers are excluded from state family planning funds. Indiana and Arizona tried to enact similar restrictions but they were overturned in court, said Elizabeth Nash, an analyst with the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion policy.

Thirteen states have some restrictions on how family planning funds are used, Nash said. Federal law has long banned the use of federal funds for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.

“South Carolina is among a handful of states that is trying something this broad,” she said in an interview.

In a statement, Planned Parenthood called the order from McMaster, who is seeking re-election next year, “politically motivated.” Planned Parenthood provides healthcare services to almost 4,000 people a year in South Carolina, it said.

“We will not stop fighting to protect our patients’ access to health care,” Jenny Black, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said in the statement.

There were seven facilities in South Carolina providing abortions in 2014, according to the most recent available figures on the Guttmacher Institute’s website. They include one clinic operated by Planned Parenthood in Columbia.

 

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Sandra Maler)