They say death and taxes are the two inevitable facts of life. Meanwhile, lawsuits and delays of laws are inevitable facts for the life movement. On Tuesday, a federal judge continued this trend when he stayed the implementation of the newly passed pro-life law in Alabama.
Alabama’s new law requires abortionists to obtain medical admitting privileges to local hospitals and requires abortion facilities to have the same standards as surgical centers (similar to the laws recently passed in Texas and Mississippi). Gov. Robert Bentley signed the law in April, and it was to take effect August 15. Until a judge stepped in.
Reuters reports that U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson issued an order delaying the law until March 24, 2014.
This delay will allow time for a lawsuit, filed in June by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, to progress. Reuters reports that the lawsuit says the law will close three out of the state’s five licensed health centers that provide abortions.
The law “would unconstitutionally restrict the ability of Alabama women, including victims of rape and incest, to access safe and legal abortions,” said Wayne Sabel, an attorney representing Planned Parenthood Southeast.
However, Gov. Bentley noted at the time he signed the law that:
If a doctor cannot obtain admitting privileges in the area where they practice, then they probably should not be practicing there.
Reuters reports that Mary Sue McClurkin (R), who “sponsored the legislation, said the law’s aim was not to shut abortion clinics. ‘I am surprised they are filing lawsuits instead of bringing the clinics up to code,’ she said when the suit was filed.”
That’s what they do, though. They gather their attorneys, band with other pro-abortion agencies, and send the courts paperwork in time to stop laws from going into effect. And astoundingly, the courts and judges fall for this instead of allowing laws that were passed with all the legal parameters in place to take effect as legislated. The idea that an abortion clinic operator and the cohorts behind the industry would know more about the constitutionality of laws than lawmakers is a bit difficult to stomach. But judges keep stomaching it enough to halt laws, making the entire legislative process a game.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute asserts that these laws are too cautious, requiring facilities to be prepared for any and all circumstances that may arise, though they likely won’t. For example, Guttmacher’s report says:
Because of new requirements in Pennsylvania that became effective in 2012, for example, Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania needed to comply with pediatric care requirements, even though these situations are unlikely to arise in an abortion setting, according to CEO Dayle Steinberg.
The problem with such arguments is that the rest of the medical industry is in opposition to that argument. It’s impossible to get even minor surgery which has very little risk without hearing a litany of possible complications and having a staffed operating room, full medical personnel, supplies for all emergencies, and on and on. Little of the contingency plan is actually needed, but we have the plan because we don’t play with lives. If there is a risk, we safeguard against it in any remotely foreseen way.
The abortion industry, on the other hand, does play with lives. They turn a baby into a playing piece called a woman’s right. They take a legitimately passed law and turn it into a circus in a courtroom, claiming that the interest is women. But if the interest were really women, they would be safeguarding their facilities, recruiting doctors in the area who have hospital admitting privileges, and otherwise showing dedication to actual women and not legal fights.
In Alabama, however, the judge has spoken, and with only a few weeks to go until a law that actually did safeguard women would take effect, it’s suspended in the air again until 2014. While the battle moves forward in the courtroom, the lives of many unborn babies will halt forever. There’s nothing safe about that – unless you’re the one making money off the abortion.
