A day after a federal appeals court upheld one of the nation’s most stringent abortion laws, both legislators and anti-abortion advocates in Georgia said there were no immediate plans to try to replicate the Texas law that will likely cause a number of that state’s abortion clinics to close.
On Tuesday the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld the 2013 Texas law that requires abortion clinics to have the operating standards of hospital-style surgery centers, including staffing and facilities. The law also requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges to a hospital within a 30-mile radius of where they are performing an abortion.
Before the law was passed, Texas had 41 abortion clinics. Now the state has roughly half that and pro-choice advocates say more clinics will likely shutter their doors because they won’t be able to afford the expensive upgrades to their buildings that the new law requires.
“Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s prior rulings do not allow for this kind of broadside legislative assault on women’s rights and health care.”
The Texas law also includes a provision similar to a Georgia law passed in 2012 that bans abortions past 20 weeks. Georgia’s law, however, was temporarily put on hold after the American Civil Liberties Union secured a temporary injunction against the law in late 2012. The injunction is still in place.
State Rep. Bruce Broadrick, a Dalton Republican and opponent of abortion rights, said he expects fellow members of the House’s Health and Human Services committee to study the Texas legislation.
“When this kind of thing happens in another state, it gets on the radar screen,” he said. “We’ll be seeing if there’s anything similar in Georgia.”
He said such a change, though, would have to go through the state’s Composite Board of Medical Examiners, which has been resistant to past attempts at tightening regulations.
On Wednesday, Genevieve Wilson, co-executive director of Georgia Right to Life, said her organization has been closely watching the fate of the Texas law. This week’s decision may prompt discussion of the possibility of similar measures being pursued in Georgia, but nothing concrete has been agreed on, Wilson said.
“We oppose abortion, but if an abortion is being performed it’s a surgical procedure,” Wilson said. “The same standards surgical facilities have to meet, abortion facilities should have to meet them also.”
According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, the number of abortions in Georgia has fluctuated between 30,378 in 2013 and 28,036 in 2012. The number was as high as 31,315 in 2010. Those numbers, however, are a combination of elective abortions and those done for medical reasons.
The Georgia Department of Community Health, licenses five ambulatory surgical centers that perform abortions, three in Atlanta, one in Savannah and one in Augusta, though hospitals and private doctors offices can perform them as well. The National Abortion Fund, an organization that works with clinics to help pay for abortions for women who cannot afford them, however, said it works with 16 Georgia clinics. Eleven of them are in metro Atlanta, one in Columbus, two in Savannah and two in Augusta, according to a National Abortion Fund spokesperson.
Texas’ restrictions are supposed to go into effect in three weeks, although pro-choice groups on Wednesday asked the 5th Circuit appeals court to stay the decision. Advocates plan to appeal Tuesday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court and don’t want any of the provisions to go into effect until that court decides whether to hear the case.
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