Here’s the gist. Think about restaurants that violate basic health codes. Customers have gotten sick from contaminated food and injured in substandard facilities. Would you expect the health department to take action to protect the public?
Now, what would you think if those restaurants sued to overturn those necessary regulations. Worse, what if they claimed to represent the health interests of the very people that they sickened and injured? Rather than complying with the same standards that govern every other restaurant, they call them “undue burdens” that could price them out of the restaurant business. That’s chutzpah!
That’s what Louisiana’s June Medical Services L.L.C. has told the court.
This corporation has a history of substandard patient care. The Louisiana state Department of Health has documented dozens of instances of unsanitary, expired, missing and improperly stored instruments, medications, and medical supplies. June Medical has repeatedly subjected unsuspecting patients to the hands of unlicensed and uncredentialed medical staff.
These violations have resulted in injury to patients and violations of patient rights. Other clinics, also entrusted with the care of women, denied their right to have incest and child rape reported to authorities. Instead, victims were sent home to their tormenters. Other patients had their uterus destroyed through medical incompetence. One clinic even employed the convicted murderer, Kermit Gosnell, as an independent contractor.
These violations were enabled because June Medical, and outpatient surgical centers like it, were exempted from standards that applied to all other outpatient surgical centers.
In 2014, Democrat Representative, Katrina Monroe introduced legislation to close this loophole and protect the women of Louisiana. It passed their House 85-6 and their Senate 34-3. It merely required that abortionists have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
This rule saves women’s lives, but abortionists don’t like it. When it comes to safe health practices, the interests of for-profit abortion mills and women are in conflict. So, how does it make sense for a clinic to have standing before the court as though it represents the interests of women?
The first 21 pages of the 35-page friend-of-the-court brief argue this point. The following eight pages argue that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was right to uphold Louisiana’s law and should be sustained.
The remaining five pages point out numerous self-contradictory opinions from the Supreme Court that have resulted from conflating two contradictory interests—the interests of abortionists and the interests of women.
SCOTUS has repeatedly said that states have a legitimate interest in ensuring that physicians and clinics be held to basic standards of care. But by treating Planned Parenthood, NARAL and various abortion mills as though they represent the interest of women, they have repeatedly undermined the legitimate interests of states that protect women.
Last week the Wyoming Tribune Eagle published an article titled, “Delegation signs on to call for Roe v. Wade review.” In it, Nick Reynolds never once hinted at the unsanitary, dangerous and illegal activities that hurt women. Instead, Reynolds characterized the entire brief as “anti-abortion” without even acknowledging its pro-women argument.
How, then, could he completely omit any discussion of the first 29 pages of a 35-page brief? Is this the kind of responsible reporting that Wyoming deserves? Is that even worthy of the opinion page?
Most alarming, Reynolds counts Cheney’s public stance against killing a newborn child as “against abortion.” This is beyond the pale. How old does a child have to be before it is beyond the reach of abortion rhetoric?
There are two people involved in every abortion. There is the child who is being destroyed and there is the woman who is undergoing an invasive surgical procedure. Reynolds and certain extreme politicians have become so focused on the child that they completely overlook the woman.
In a headlong rush to remove every obstacle to the quick and cheap destruction of the child, they forget that once he is out of the birth canal it is no longer an abortion. That is infanticide.
Both federal law and Wyoming statute recognize a newborn child to have the full protection of the law. Enforcing this law is not “anti-abortion.” It is simply humane.
Their single-minded focus on destroying the unborn child also blinds them to the interests of women to have the full protection of public health laws.
Wyoming’s congressional delegation sees both the woman and the child. Its members are asking the court to address the interests of both—especially when they conflict with the interests of abortionist mills. Wyoming should be proud.
Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on January 17, 2020.
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