Even though legal battles are still raging around a new abortion law in Texas, the law’s sweeping new regulations are expected to shutter all but six of the state’s 20 existing abortion facilities.
Writing for the National Journal, Sophie Novack is reporting that even though the new law may end up in the Supreme Court, by then most of the state’s facilities will be forced to close because they currently do not meet the same standards as other ambulatory surgical centers in the state.
Thus far, 20 of the state’s 40 clinics have been forced to close since 2011.
One of the reasons for these closures is the requirement that abortionists have admitting privileges in a hospital within 30 miles of the facility in the event of an emergency.
Novack interviewed Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Women’s Health, who said that this regulation alone has caused two of her six clinics to close thus far. She expects only one to survive when the rest of the regulations go into effect in September of this year.
Hagstrom Miller gave an eye-opening account of what it’s like to operate an abortion facility in a pro-life state such as Texas.
“I can’t find anyone to deliver water or resurface the parking lot, because they’re against abortion. I can’t get someone to fix a leak in the roof,” Hagstrom Miller told Novack.
She went on to say that it’s been “impossible” to find hospitals willing to grant admitting privileges to abortionists, or to find ambulatory surgical centers that are up to code and are willing to sell or lease their facilities.
“Leasing or buying the space itself is expensive and difficult, and Hagstrom Miller currently has mortgages on three buildings, which she will have to sell,” Novack reports. “She purchased those under a different name, and did construction without associating them with Whole Woman’s Health out of concern that she wouldn’t get permits or might attract protests.”
Bringing facilities up to code might be expensive, but it could save the lives of thousands of women and children. Even though the abortion industry touts the “safe, legal” mantra, court records show that nearly 1,000 women a year die in “safe legal” abortion facilities in the state of Texas alone.
These numbers might have continued to grow if not for the new regulatory climate that has been sweeping the country since the exposure of Kermit Gosnell’s filthy “house of horrors” clinic in West Philadelphia.
Gosnell is serving multiple life sentences for several counts of first-degree murder of infants born alive after abortion, and the death of at least one woman in a botched abortion. The state of Pennsylvania’s department of health was forced to admit that it hadn’t inspected his facility – or any of the state’s abortion centers – for years. The admission prompted a swift rewrite of the laws in that state and many others across the country by lawmakers concerned about the standard of care women are receiving in today’s “safe, legal abortion” industry.
As a result, the abortion industry is experiencing record number of closures across the country, which is saving the lives of countless babies and their mothers.
Pro-life groups believe women deserve better care than they are receiving in these facilities and are only too happy to see them closing down.
“If the state is passing regulations that are similar or equivalent to those that all other medical facilities provide, and some [clinics] close because they’re not meeting standards that other medical facilities have to meet, I don’t see a problem with that,” said Dan McConchie, vice president for government affairs at Americans United for Life.
Abortion supporters say that even if the Texas law lands in the nation’s highest court, any decision in the case is at least two years away, a delay which is expected to doom all but six of the state’s abortion facilities.
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