I have been planning for a few days to write about the decision of the United States Court of Appeals to uphold the constitutionality of the new Texas abortion law. The case may still get to the Supreme Court, but even so, it is a landmark decision. The law was attacked by pro-choice groups on two principal grounds: first, it required each abortion clinic to have at least one doctor in the group with admitting privileges at a hospital located within 30 miles of the clinic. Second, the law required that certain abortion inducing drugs be used in accordance with the rules and limitations set by the Food and Drug Administration when approving the use of the medicine. Simply put, the law required that abortion clinics have at least some qualified doctors and also that they use drugs in the ways approved by the federal regulators.
The two prongs of the attack on the law may seem strange. After all, how can it be unconstitutional for the state to require competent doctors be the ones to provide abortion services? And how can it be unconstitutional for the state to ban the use of drugs in ways that have not be evaluated or approved? Imagine an abortion clinic where only a nurse provides services. If one of the patients suffers complications, shouldn't the state be able to demand that the clinic have someone there capable of dealing with that emergency?
The amazing thing to me is not that the Court of Appeals ruled the law constitutional, but rather that the lower court had first found that law unconstitutional. All that is required for constitutionality is that the law have a rational relationship to its purpose. In other words, if it is rational that the requirement for qualified physicians could lead to better patient care (the state purpose of the law), then the law is constitutional. That relationship is self evident here, however.
For too many years we have had battles about abortion fought in places where the mere mention of any limitation on abortions was enough to defeat the effort. Now we have this decision which makes clear that regulation of the procedures for providing abortions are proper and not unconstitutional. It is about time that rationality won out.
The two prongs of the attack on the law may seem strange. After all, how can it be unconstitutional for the state to require competent doctors be the ones to provide abortion services? And how can it be unconstitutional for the state to ban the use of drugs in ways that have not be evaluated or approved? Imagine an abortion clinic where only a nurse provides services. If one of the patients suffers complications, shouldn't the state be able to demand that the clinic have someone there capable of dealing with that emergency?
The amazing thing to me is not that the Court of Appeals ruled the law constitutional, but rather that the lower court had first found that law unconstitutional. All that is required for constitutionality is that the law have a rational relationship to its purpose. In other words, if it is rational that the requirement for qualified physicians could lead to better patient care (the state purpose of the law), then the law is constitutional. That relationship is self evident here, however.
For too many years we have had battles about abortion fought in places where the mere mention of any limitation on abortions was enough to defeat the effort. Now we have this decision which makes clear that regulation of the procedures for providing abortions are proper and not unconstitutional. It is about time that rationality won out.
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