As the Supreme Court hears a case involving a Texas law mandating that abortion facilities be given the same regulatory treatment as ambulatory care facilities, the Gosnell grand jury report from 2011 reminds us what happens when pro-abortion ideology trumps women’s health. I hope the Justices find this report somewhere amid the many briefs that have been filed in the Texas case.
Gosnell was in Pennsylvania, but the recommendations of the grand jury are of interest to anyone who cares about public health in any state. From page 248 of the grand jury report, under “Recommendations”: “The Pennsylvania Department of Health should license abortion clinics as ambulatory surgical facilities.”
“The regulation of Pennsylvania’s ambulatory surgical facilities – which run over 30 pages – provide a comprehensive set of rules and procedures to assure overall quality of care at such facilities. The effect of the Department of Health’s reluctance to treat abortion clinics as ASFs was to accord patients of those facilities far less protection than patients seeking, for example, liposuction or a colonoscopy….Gosnell’s facility fell far below the basic, minimum standards of care that any patient having a surgical procedure should expect to receive. There is no justification for denying abortion patients the protections available to every other patient of an ambulatory surgical facility, and no reason to exempt abortion clinics from meeting these standards.”
Does the Texas law at issue today create stronger regulations on abortion providers than on, say, liposuction providers? Based on their questions today, some Justices apparently think so, and they don’t like it. I wonder how many of them would object if they believed the law simply required parity with ASFs.
Today at the Supreme Court of the United States, our nation’s solicitor general argued against the Texas law, calling it an “undue burden.”
The Pennsylvania Family Institute and Council anticipated that argument. Their words: “Ask the women who went to Kermit Gosnell if lower standards for abortion clinics is a good thing.”
Leaven for the Loaf 