Mississippi abortion ruling raises questions of women's health

Jackson, Miss., Aug 1, 2014 / 02:42 am

A federal appeals court has drawn criticism for blocking a 2012 Mississippi law requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals.

"The issue has been so politicized that people don't use their common sense when it comes to this issue," said Dana Cody, president and executive director of Life Legal Defense, a non-profit that provides legal assistance in pro-life cases.

"(For) any other surgery, the physician has admitting privileges somewhere. Why does abortion get a pass?" she said to CNA July 30, suggesting that it is simply "more rhetoric to try to justify exploiting women."

Cody responded to a July 29 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals against the Mississippi law on the grounds that enforcing it would close the state's only remaining abortion clinic.

In a 2-to-1 vote, the court said that requiring abortion doctors to obtain admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of their clinic would in turn create an "undue burden" on women in the "exercise of their constitutional rights" to have an abortion.

Judge E. Grady Jolly argued that "Mississippi may not shift its obligation to respect the established constitutional rights of its citizens to another state."

At the Jackson Women's Health Clinic – the only abortion clinic in the state – just one of the three doctors who perform abortions was able to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital.

The other two doctors, who perform the majority of the abortions, were turned down because the hospital found the doctors' medical practices to be "inconsistent with this (h)ospital's policies and practices as concerns abortion."

The court ruled that since the doctors were unable to obtain admitting privileges as HB1390 required, the clinic would presumably have to shut down, therefore leaving no abortion clinics open in the state.

Diane Derzis, owner of Jackson Women's Health Clinic, has been the subject of controversy for years. In 2012, the state of Alabama shut down her Birmingham abortion clinic, New Woman All Women, after they determined that it was operating without proper license.

An inspection by the Alabama Public Health Department yielded 76 pages worth of deficiencies in the clinic dating back to 2003, including inadequate staff training that sent three people to the hospital for drug overdoses.

At her Mississippi abortion clinic, pro-life sidewalk counselors captured video of what appeared to be a patient being wheeled out to an ambulance despite staff member's attempts to block their cameras.

Cody said that the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges is a matter of health and safety for women.

If a doctor does not have these privileges, the care of the patient is transferred to the emergency responders and hospital staff, who generally have little information about the woman's condition or medical history.

"When a woman gets transported to a hospital, the same physician isn't there," Cody said, "so it prolongs the process and it puts the woman who has been injured in further danger."

She added that the ruling will likely be appealed in the Supreme Court and that her organization will file a "friend of the court" brief supporting the 2012 law.