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Alabama abortion clinic law unconstitutional, judge rules Alabama abortion clinic law unconstitutional, judge rules
(35 minutes later)
A federal judge says an Alabama law restricting abortion doctors is unconstitutional. An Alabama law restricting doctors at abortion clinics is unconstitutional because it would unduly hamper women’s ability to obtain the medical procedure, a federal judge ruled Monday.
US district judge Myron Thompson ruled Monday that state lawmakers exceeded their authority when they passed a law last year requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have hospital admitting privileges. US District Judge Myron Thompson, in a 172-page opinion and an accompanying order, said state lawmakers exceeded their authority when they passed a law last year requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have hospital admitting privileges.
Thompson issued an order temporarily blocking enforcement of the law. Thompson extended an earlier order blocking enforcement of the law and said he would issue a final order after considering more written arguments from lawyers.
Thompson’s decision comes days after a federal appeals court blocked a similar law in Mississippi. “This case is not closed,” Thompson wrote.
Planned Parenthood and others filed a lawsuit over the Alabama law last year. The decision came days after a federal appeals court blocked a similar law in Mississippi.
Supporters of the law say it would make clinics safer. Clinic operators say the law would force the shutdown of all but two of Alabama’s five clinics. Susan Watson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said the law wasn’t designed to protect women, as supporters maintain.
Thompson says the Alabama law would place an undue burden on women. “Major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, oppose them,” she said of the Alabama law and similar ones.
More soon … The state attorney general’s office did not have any immediate comment on the decision.
Clinics in Birmingham and Mobile run by Planned Parenthood Southeast and the Montgomery clinic operated by Reproductive Health Services filed the lawsuit, saying they would have to close because they use out-of-town doctors without admitting privileges and have been unable to get local doctors with privileges to serve their clinics. The state’s other two clinics, in Tuscaloosa and Huntsville, use local doctors with admitting privileges.
The law’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin of Indian Springs, said the measure would make the clinics safer, while clinic operators said it was an attempt to shut them down through a regulation they could not meet.
Similar laws have been blocked by federal courts in Kansas and Wisconsin, while they have taken effect in Missouri, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
Two of Alabama’s five licensed abortion clinics are temporarily not performing abortions, but not because of the physician requirement. Planned Parenthood Southeast closed its Birmingham clinic in January after firing two employees for selling an abortion medication to a person in the clinic’s parking lot. The clinic has replaced its staff and plans to resume services after an inspection by state health officials.
Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville closed in late June because it couldn’t comply with another part of the 2013 law that took effect July 1. It requires clinics to have wide halls and doors and improved fire safety systems like a surgical treatment center. The Huntsville clinic is trying to move to a new location that meets the requirements, said Brian Hale, attorney for the state Department of Public Health.
The Department of Public Health reports that 8,485 pregnancies were terminated in Alabama in 2013, with 16 done at hospitals and the rest at abortion clinics.