A new Louisiana law is being contested by the abortion clinics it affects, and through a complaint filed in federal court on Aug. 22. Three of the five clinics still operating in the state are participating in the suit, according to MSNBC, claiming compliance with the new law is impossible.
The impossibility of compliance seems to be intended, the clinics allege. Beginning Sept. 1, abortion providers in the state will be required to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of their clinics. Doctors at Causeway Medical Clinic in Metairie, Bossier City Medical Suite, and Hope Medical Group for Women in Shreveport, Louisiana, say that’s too little time to comply. Even worse, hospitals may reject their doctors out of fear of protests, the complainants say, making their compliance impossible, leading to clinic shutdowns.
While Gov. Bobby Jindal praised the June-enacted bill for what he said was the safety it provided to women, the complainants say it will have the opposite effects when their clinics no longer operate. ?The complaint reads:
?Legal abortion is one of the safest procedures in medical practice. Abortion complications are exceedingly rare: nationwide, less than 0.3 percent of abortion patients experience a complication that requires hospitalization.”
Their own rates are much better than the national average for abortion, too, say the complainants, who state less than one out of every 25,000 of their own patients have had complications. In comparison, the rate for complications following general surgery in the U.S. is 30.3 percent, according to the U.S. Archives for Surgery.
Without regular operation of their clinics, women in the state will have few options, and which defeats the declared purpose of the bill, plaintiffs say. Instead of safe options in a medical clinic, say the three, women may subject themselves to unsafe methods to end pregnancy. Those who seek safe abortion will be affected by the cost of travel to out-of-state clinics, as well, they say, and which could delay the procedure for lower income women.
The remaining two Louisiana abortion clinics are not participating in the lawsuit, and expect to close very soon.
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