TUCSON, Ariz., June 27, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The following is a statement by the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS):
In a decision as unjustified as Roe v. Wade itself, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down sensible regulations of abortion clinics enacted by the State of Texas in 2013 as “HB 2,” stated the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS), which filed an amicus brief in defense of the law.
Justice Anthony Kennedy quietly joined the side of the abortion industry without explaining himself, giving it a 5-3 advantage when a 4-4 tie would have upheld the law. The late Justice Antonin Scalia’s absence on the Court was felt but would not have changed the outcome.
The Court majority repeated the fiction that there are no serious safety issues concerning abortion. Yet severe complications occur every day. Abortion clinics just send patients to hospital emergency rooms, and the public bears the cost.
Texas HB 2 required abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the abortion, which ended the common practice of “hit and run” abortions. The Supreme Court showed little concern for women and their ability to get timely care for life-threatening complications.
“This ruling is a setback for women, for medicine, and for the credibility of the Supreme Court,” Jane Orient, M.D., observed. “It demonstrates that the Court will continue to allow abortion clinics to act outside of the norms of the medical profession.”
The Court majority recognized the atrocities committed by abortionist Kermit Gosnell, M.D., whose facility would have been shut down by this type of law in Pennsylvania. The majority declared that “Gosnell’s deplorable crimes could escape detection only because his facility went uninspected for more than 15 years” and that “[d]etermined wrongdoers, already ignoring existing statutes and safety measures, are unlikely to be convinced to adopt safe practices by a new overlay of regulations.”
“In no other field of law are regulations invalidated by the courts simply because wrongdoers might try to violate the safety measures,” observed Andrew Schlafly, AAPS General Counsel. “If the fact that someone might ignore a law were used as a basis for striking it down, then virtually every law on the books would be unconstitutional.”
“Requiring an abortionist to be available to handle complications from the operation he performs would have stopped Gosnell and would have save lives,” he added. “Justice Clarence Thomas was correct in his dissent in repeating the observation of the late Justice Scalia that the Court majority continues ‘to bend the rules when any effort to limit abortion, or even to speak in opposition to abortion, is at issue.’”
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943 to preserve private medicine and the patient-physician relationship.