The Democrats’ Brilliant Idea for How to Stop Unnecessary Abortion Clinic Regulations

[politicat]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/07/15/women_s_health_protection_act_a_brilliant_bill_to_protect_women_s_abortion.html

Democrats in the Senate on Tuesday took a major step in pushing back against the growing trend of regulations that are designed to shut down safe abortion clinics. The Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony on a bill introduced by Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Tammy Baldwin, a bill that would do significant damage to anti-choice efforts to go around Roe v. Wade by regulating abortion clinics out of existence. It's called the Women's Health Protection Act, and it would end the attacks on abortion clinics through one simple measure: requiring states to regulate abortion providers in exactly the same way they do other clinics and doctors who provide comparable services. No more singling out abortion providers.

The bill goes into detail about the specific abortion-only regulations that would not be allowed, but the general principle is that if you don't require it for other outpatient procedures, you can't require it for abortion. Want to force women seeking abortion to listen to a script full of lies and then make them wait 24 or 48 hours to think it over? Better be prepared to do the same for people who need colonoscopies. Want to require a bunch of unnecessary visits before a woman is allowed to have a procedure? Now you need to do that for a biopsy, too. Want to force abortion clinics to meet ambulatory surgical center standards and abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges? Well, dentists will have to meet the same standards before they can drill a tooth. If this bill passes (more on that below), states would be forced to let abortion providers operate in peace or make everyone else—including, gasp, men—endure the same kind of hassles and mistreatment women seeking abortion now have to endure in much of the country.

Great idea. About time. As for the House... I think it can be passed, if the small business side can get behind it. Might be worth making the effort. A lot of dentists and other doctors have had their own businesses disrupted by these laws, because medical building zoning means various offices end up being in the same area.

[procon]

1. Sounds like a logical and equitable bill...

but do they realistically expect Republicans will vote for it?

[politicat]

7. No.

You used logical and equitable and expected it to apply to the House?




http://fuckyeahwestwing.tumblr.com/image/15972094813

Gotta start somewhere.

[mindwalker_i]

2. Sweet! I can't wait until

Men have to get trans-penile ultrasounds before they can get boner pills.

[politicat]

9. And since dental surgery under sedation carries more risk than an early abortion with a local...

I'd like the risk assessment to be real.

[Laelth]

3. No way that will pass the House ...

... unless we re-take it in November. If we do, I hope this bill passes early next year.

-Laelth

[politicat]

11. Right now, a bill to name a post office barely passes.

This House can't agree that the ocean is not made of liquid cheese.

But just because it's expecting an irresponsible, untrustworthy, partisan, ambitious and thirsty for the limelight* body to do their jobs doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried. The fact that they can't be bothered is worth spending the effort because it makes them look like hell at home.

*HT to The West Wing for this paraphrase. Still the best description of the House I've ever seen.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

41. The ocean isn't made of liquid cheese?

That explains why my nachos have sucked lately. Nothing but soggy chips and salt...

[lark]

39. It wouldn't pass the Senate either

Repugs would filibuster it, no doubt at all. Assholes!

[gratuitous]

4. Call it the good for the goose, good for the gander bill

Let's see men jump through a few hoops before they get their boner-in-a-bottle pills. Including a thorough analysis of their support obligation should their romp produce a child. Maybe sign a finding of financial responsibility, attesting that they can pay support, before they get their viagra?

[politicat]

12. Oo. I kinda like it...

At least, the devil on my right shoulder does. The rest of me knows that that way lies making everyone sign those, and binding people into staying in marriages for the sake of the child's financial future, and oi, that is bad mojo looking for a place to land.

[Scuba]

5. Tammy Baldwin represents me!

RoJo, on the other hand ...

[Control-Z]

6. It's a really great idea.

I've actually wondered why something along these lines hasn't been tried before.

I also don't understand why hipaa laws aren't used to stop the scum from picketing and approaching patients at clinics. You have to stand in a line away from the pharmacy counter when someone is picking up an Rx - for that person's privacy. Why can strangers approach cars and patients and even speak to women entering a clinic? What about our privacy?

[Delmette]

15. That's what I said to my sister!

Why aren't HIPPA laws invoked against the "sidewalk counselors", especially those who take picture of license plates!

[Jackpine Radical]

44. Because HIPAA regulates healthcare professionals, not the general public.

You have to stand back from the drug counter because the pharmacist has the responsibility to protect the information. Private citizens have no such obligation. There's no way they could, really, because healthcare people have to go through a lot of specialized training about when & to whom information may be released, what safeguards must be in place to secure information, etc.

[LittleGirl]

8. It would never pass

they don't want to change things, at ALL.

[Bibliovore]

42. Well, they DO, but...

...not in a direction that supports women's health. :/

[immoderate]

10. If not for the Hastert rule, it might pass.

--imm

[surrealAmerican]

13. Even assuming this passes ...

... (and there is no reason to assume this) would the courts uphold it?

It's a reasonable rule, but I doubt it will succeed.

[politicat]

20. They upheld Colorado's bubble law.

Given this court, anything is possible, but this court did allow Colorado's bubble, which is a variation of this law.

In Colorado, no one is allowed to sidewalk counsel within 8 feet of any person within 100 feet of ANY medical establishment. Which means the antis can'T get within 100 feet of most doors, and often more (because the outer ring podiatrist counts as a medical office, giving the inner ring clinic that extra 60 or 70 feet.) But it also means I can't go accost parents headed into the homeopathic practitioner's office, or carrying their infant into the chiropractor's office, or warn people going into a dental office that still uses mercury amalgam. And this is a good thing, because it treats all medical offices as equals. In the Boston decision, one of the things mentioned was the singling out of abortion providers versus everyone else, thus setting up a special class. As long as no medical facility is considered a special class, it should stand.

Then again... Roberts court.

[dsc]

14. It would be very easy to evade

All a state would have to do is require hospital privileges and none of the other stuff of all the providers. The other doctors could easily get those privileges while the abortion providers could not.

[politicat]

18. Not so much.

Dentists don't have privileges. Nor do most out-patient cosmetic surgeons, dermatologists, podiatrists, opthamalogists. For that matter, most GPs don't have privileges.

Just looking at my 25K town, we have 12 dentist offices, 22 GPs, 5 dermatologists, 4 opthamalogists and two podiatrists... All of whom are members of the local Chamber of Commerce (that's how I found these numbers.) Take away their right to do business and I promise you that the state will come to a standstill.

The other option would be for hospitals to stop looking at admitting privileges as a profit center and accept all comers.

I don't expect Alabama or Mississippi or Texas not to try, but given that the federal courts have been slapping them down, that's all.

[dsc]

19. they don't have them now

but they could easily get them if they needed them. No hospital is going to be picketed for giving a dentist admission privileges.

[politicat]

21. Actually, getting privileges isn't easy.

Hospitals give them out with the expectation of a certain number of admissions. Which is why cardiologists tend to have privileges, but dermatologists not so much. Dentists almost never have privileges because even sedation dentists rarely send anyone to the hospital. (And when they do, they're either calling 911 and letting the attending do the admitting, or telling the person to go to the ER, and letting the attending do the admitting.)

Most admitting physicians are on staff at the hospital.

Another aspect of privileges is proximity. The doc must live within a certain time radius of most hospitals to get privileges. My dentist would not be able to get privileges at the hospital 2 miles from her office, because she lives 25 miles away. It's not like professionals don't commute, too.

And then there's on call requirements -- some hospitals have them (which is why most of their admitters are on staff). If the hospital has a privilege contract with a non-employee physician, that hospital cannot expect zir to be on call without putting that person on payroll. (Most doctors are independent contractors, with fee for service through their patients; the hospitals don't pay them.)

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/07/24/why-admitting-privileges-laws-have-no-medical-benefit/

[dsc]

22. I guess it is more involved that I thought

I figured it would be a fairly simple matter to just give out the privileges but if it is all that then this law might work.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

25. Then there's the on-call portion

Most of these professionals once connected to a hospital have to
Take call. Most despise it!

[CTyankee]

16. I LOVE my senators, Chris Murphy and Dick Blumenthal!

[Doctor_J]

17. Has the president weighed in on this?

Nice if he would lend his voice to some liberal initiatives for a change.

Best of luck to the Senators who concocted and are pushing this excellent legislation.

[hobbit709]

23. Now getting it past the pukes is the hard part.

[politicat]

24. Well... Yeah.

Do nothing House.

(Maybe we need to take away their game boys and gyms.)

[malthaussen]

26. Pretty much echoes Judge Posner's opinion...

... as posted here in DU a couple of days ago.

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/02/the_last_honest_conservative_meet_the_brilliant_ronald_reagan_appointee_making_antonin_scalias_life_very_difficult/

-- Mal

[Jerry442]

27. I'm due for a colonoscopy.

If all providers of outpatient procedures are to be treated equally, does that mean when I go, I'll have to run a gauntlet of protestors carrying pictures of assholes?

[politicat]

29. With luck, not...

What pics of Tom Cruise, Ted Cruz, Newtie and Trent Lott? With that sort of stimulus, you wouldn't need the prep solution the night before.


Good luck, and I hope everything comes out fine. (Also, sorry about the prep.)

[LynneSin]

30. They would have pictures of GOP politicians

[LynneSin]

28. How about the first thing we do is stop calling them Abortion Clinics

Abortion Clinics make it sound like that the only service offered is Abortion. Most of these places Abortions is probably less than 5% of all services provided. These are Women's Health Centers.

'Abortion Clinics' is a word created by the anti-choice crowds trying to make it sound like these places are some sort of butchering shop. They are not. These are centers that provide a wide variety of women's health care services and will provide them to women of all financial statuses.

I know the OP didn't use the word but the fact that a progressive website like Slate uses it is disappointing.

[politicat]

31. I agree - but I'm not the copy editor at Slate.

I'm not sure they have one anymore, to be honest, and I've never seen their house style guide.

Write them, not me. I call medical facilities that primarily handle reproductive health "reproductive health clinics". (ETA because not all people using the clinics are women -- condoms, vasectomies and STI dx and treatment are part of their mandate; not all people who possess a uterus are women, and not all women have uteri. Fair?)

Just the messenger here. Do I need body armor for the job?

[LynneSin]

32. Did you read my last sentence or just go with the headline of my post

[joeybee12]

33. The cynic in me says it's an election-year gimmick

It's a good idea, but has no chance in the House...they want Senators to be on record for or against.

[politicat]

34. At this point, with the do nothing house... Gimmicks are what's available.

I seriously do not know what else the Senate and/or House Dems could do -- go have a sit in on the house floor? Get the NSA to start a blackmail campaign? Take their mascot and hold it for ransom? TP their houses? While I like the first option best, I'm pretty sure that it would be perceived as Dirty Hippy tactics and pilloried.

The House, under the current (lack of) leadership is the model of a completely unmotivated, oppositional defiant fourteen year old. There is no reasoning out of this, no medicating out of this, no threatening out of it. Getting past that behavior is either wait them out, or letting them deal with the consequences of their own actions until they choose to alter their behavior. The difference between the House and a fourteen year old, of course, is power.

[sinkingfeeling]

35. Too bad the Senate GOP will filibuster and the House won't touch it.

[politicat]

36. And we have a means of fixing this: help everyone you know register to vote. Prompt them.

If we turn out, we can increase the Senate and take back the House. There are literally more of us on the left side of the spectrum than on the right. They win because our organization is spotty.

If all of us got 5 new voters registered and voting... We'd be golden.

Midterms matter.

[riqster]

43. This^^^^^

[SunSeeker]

37. K & R

[greymattermom]

38. call it the Joan Rivers law

to protect patients from mistakes in outpatient surgery clinics. Right?

[ehrnst]

40. There are no "necessary regulations" on medical procedures. The medical community does this.

Politicians need to stay out of what the medical professions as a whole states good medical policy.

Legislation is only applied to 'lady parts" because it's politically expedient, not medically wise.

[politicat]

45. This. Word. Preach, sibling! N/t