So the new law regulating abortion clinics that was put on hold last month has been heard again in court. The Family Research Council blog recently posted a response to a typically biased LA Times article about the Missouri abortion law. In the response, Andrew Schlafly, General Counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, offers a point by point rebuttal of some of the claims in the Times article. Here are a few:
Point 1: “A first-trimester surgical abortion takes about two minutes.”
False. It takes many times longer than that, even if there are no complications.[4] When incomplete, the abortion is repeated on the same mother. If there are complications, then even more is required. Some abortions are done under general anesthesia, which of course takes longer still.
Tonsillectomies and colonoscopies have been subject to this Missouri law, and they do not require any more time than abortions…
Point 3: “They have enacted the most far-reaching regulations in the nation — dictating the physical layout, staffing and record-keeping policies of any facility that performs five or more abortions a month, including private doctors’ offices that regularly prescribe the abortion pill.”
Misleading: This law is no different from what is required for other ambulatory surgery centers. The complaining Planned Parenthood clinic does surgical abortion, so the point about the abortion pill does not apply to it. As to doctors’ offices, very few prescribe this dangerous abortion pill, which causes bleeding, pain and higher complications. It is reasonable to require safe facilities of providers who do profit from abortion.
He also points out that PP, America’s largest abortion provider, sees an annual profit of over $50 million and is complaining about having to spend close to $1 million to create a safer environment for women undergoing abortions. After all, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it – being “safe” and legal? Abortions may not be done with coat hangers, or in “back alleys” but they can still be life threatening and even deadly (even in the case of medical abortions and the RU486 pill).
According to the rep from Missouri Right to Life that I spoke with today, the judge is expected to rule on the law on September 24.
More:
Read the injury report of a Nebraska woman who suffered “excruciating pain” and seizures after a botched abortion at a Planned Parenthood facility and had to undergo an emergency hysterectomy.