Appeals court upholds one abortion regulation, strikes down other

[FernBell]

An appeals court upheld one Ohio abortion regulation and struck down another Monday, ruling that minors get more than one chance during a pregnancy to try to bypass a parental notification requirement and agreeing that women must get doctor counseling before an abortion.

A three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision Monday on an appeal of U.S. District Judge Sandra Beckwith's Sept. 8, 2005, ruling. The appeal was filed on behalf of Cincinnati Women's Services Inc., a now-closed clinic that performed abortions.

The appeals court agreed with Beckwith's ruling that a provision requiring women seeking abortions to attend a face-to-face meeting with a doctor for informed-consent purposes did not cause an undue burden on those women even though it could delay abortions up to two weeks.

But the appeals court reversed Beckwith's ruling that said it would not cause an undue burden to limit minors to one request per pregnancy when seeking a judicial bypass of the parental notification requirement.


http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/16002906.htm

[Ayesha]

1. I gotta say

this makes sense. You meet with the doctor in advance before any other medical/surgical procedure, why not for an abortion?

[Lars39]

2. Travel expenses, lodging, food, baby-sitter....

all of that adds up to deter poor and middle class women from getting abortions.
Having to pay all of that twice is a major roadblock.

[Ayesha]

3. True, but

wouldn't that be the case for ANY medical procedure? I work with people who have cancer, and I've yet to talk to one who had surgery without meeting with the surgeon in advance. Often they had to miss work or drive long distances to do so. It just seems that if abortion is a medical procedure like any other (which it IS), then the same rules should apply - meet with the doctor in advance, discuss benefits and risks, sign informed consent paperwork etc. It shouldn't be different or special; that is part of what stigmatizes it. Having different, more lax rules than for any other medical procedure gives the anti's ammunition and feeds their treatment of it as something outside the medical mainstream.

[Lars39]

4. Not necessarily.

I've had procedures done right after meeting with the doctor for the first time.

[Nobody]

6. Knee surgery and heart attacks are not the same

If you tear a ligament, they can't operate unless you have a minimum range of motion. In can take two weeks or longer to get there. The operation involves bending your leg all the way and straightening it all the way. When you come out of surgery it hurts. A lot.

Heart attacks usually involve a trip to the emergency room and priority over someone who is there for a broken arm. If they don't get you in right away, you could die.

The difference is that operating on a heart attack sufferer is a time sensitive issue. So is ending a pregnancy. It may not be quite of that magnitude unless a late term pregnancy goes so wrong she will die if they don't abort immediately.

Delaying tactics are just that. Delaying tactics. In my state not only do we have a 24 hour waiting period, but we also have to look at medically inaccurate brochures. I say medically inaccurate because the AMA has actually come out and said that when the law was passed. Abortion is such an inflammatory issue that if a woman hasn't already given it a lot of thought, she has been living under a rock.

Requiring a waiting period to "think it over" is insulting. Any delaying tactic is insulting all the way from refusing to fill prescriptions to requiring 24 hours between in-person visits complete with propaganda.

On edit: Clarified how long it can take to be ready for knee surgery.

On second edit: Forgot the explanation of why I had to edit.

[Control-Z]

11. I'm sorry, you are just wrong

on so many levels. The availability of abortion clinics and doctors willing to perform the procedure alone make it unreasonable to compare it to 'ANY medical procedure'. What percentage of those patients (who require 'ANY medical procedure') actually need to drive hours to find a willing doctor for treatment? Or need escorts to get through a line of angry protesters to get that treatment?

Think about it. There are specialists on every corner. Even in rural areas the drive, like you say, is an hour away - not hours, or across state like is is for an abortion clinic.

What stigmatizes abortion is the need to go to specially marked clinics, that are few and far between, and only on days when a willing provider is available to perform the procedure. What stigmatizes abortion is anti-choice propaganda that makes people believe legislation like this is good for women.

There are a lot of things that stigmatize abortion but making the procedure a lesser burden on women isn't one of them.

[novalib]

5. This Is BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!

Anyone here ever hear of having an appendix removed???

Anyone here ever hear of someone having an appendix taken out by a doctor that the patient has NEVER met??!!

IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME!!!

"No undue Burden" even though women could have to wait TWO WEEKS for an abortion???!!!

THIS IS BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!

[Ayesha]

7. Yeah, I thought of this

I have the stomach flu and was .6 degrees of fever away from going to the hospital last night. And if I had, I would have been treated by a doc I never met before. But, I still don't think that's the same thing as having an abortion. Abortion is a time-sensitive procedure, but it's not an EMERGENCY procedure. It's more akin to cancer surgery than appendicitis. When my stepmom had her surgery for ovarian cancer, she met with the doctr and then had her surgery less than a week later. Both times she and my dad had to travel an hour away from their home as they live in a semi-rural area and the closest good hospital is in a big city. This law only requires 24 hours, and I assume there's an exception if the woman's life is threateened? So there SHOULD be no reason why a woman can't have a 10 minute appointment with the doctor at 9 am to go over the details of the procedure, then go back the next morning at 9 for the abortion. I realize that some women have to travel long distances etc., but that isn't their fault that there is no clinic nearby, and shouldn't be an excuse for going against what would be the standard of care for any other comparable procedure.

I just think we have to stop treating abortion as something that is semi-back-alley still and done in an assembly line manner in terms of the actual procedure. I have 2 friends/acquaintances who had abortions and they both described it that way. The counselor was nice, the doctor indifferent and in/out extremely quickly. Both of them were OK afterwards, physically and psychologically, but it could have been a better experience.

I'm still sick and brain kind of fuzzy but I hope that made sense.

[novalib]

8. NO EMERGENCY???!!!

Who says abortion is NOT sn EMERGENCY procedure???!!!!!

How can you (or anyone else) KNOW when an abortion is an EMERGENCY or not??!!

What you may consider to be a non-emergency could, for the WOMAN involved, by a TOTAL EMERGENCY!!!

This law has the effect of TELLING EACH AND EVERY WOMAN that HER abortion is NOT AN EMERGENCY!!!

And that, of course, has the effect, of marginalizing every woman who considers HER OWN pregnancy to be an EMERGENCY!!!

Last time I checked, EVERYONE in this country gets to decide whether their own condition is or is not an emergency!!!

There may be "standards of care" but are there any other procdures besides abortion where the LAW (passed by old white MEN) DICTATE what the standards of care MUST BE???!!!!!

[iverglas]

9. okey dokey

You let us know when your state passes a law REQUIRING that anyone seeking any other medical procedure jump through a specified series of hoops, over a specified period of time, before THE STATE will permit his/her physician to provide the procedure.

You think that abortion shouldn't be treated differently from other medical procedures?

Well then how come you think it should be treated differently from other medical procedures? ... and women with unwanted pregnancies, and their doctors, should be treated differently from all other human beings?

[HappyWeasel]

10. Well, luckily no more bullshit will be ozzing out of Ohio....

due to their new governor who is endorsed by NARAL.