Saturday, July 14, 2012

Mississippi Clinic to Stay Open, But . . .

A federal judge ruled that the Jackson, Mississippi, clinic for women's health may stay open while it tries to meet the demands of the new state law, which requires all doctors performing abortions to have privileges at local hospitals.  This is good because the clinic can stay open and continuing servicing women's MANY different health needs.  However, it is really just a delay until the courts rule on whether the fact that the local hospitals are ignoring privilege requests so that the doctors will not be able to meet the state requirements.  Again, that sounds like causing the effect of an undue burden on the women of Mississippi who need abortions.

See the article here:  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48181044/ns/us_news-life/#.UAGQrByubmw

In a related topic, Jill Lepore with The New Yorker wrote a great piece following Cecile Richards, the President of Planned Parenthood.  In the article, Lepore follows the historical development of medical-supervised and -provided abortions and the legal and policy debates.  It certainly helps round out the picture.  Then, when you read that in conjunction with Jeffrey Toobin's book The Nine (available at amazon.com here), you get yet a fuller picture of how the ultra-conservatives have swung the abortion debate to the main stage (the past conservatives agreed that what a woman does with her own body is completely private) and to the right.  I recommend reading what they both have to say.  

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