Vol. 77/No. 15      April 22, 2013

The new law would require doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. A similar law was passed in North Dakota in March. Tennessee, Mississippi, Kansas, Arizona and Utah already have such requirements. Several of Alabama’s five abortion clinics rely on doctors who fly in from out of state and may be unable to get local hospital privileges.

Another requirement in the new law would force clinics to meet building, equipment and staffing standards of ambulatory surgery centers. Some clinics would have to spend millions on changes that serve no medical purpose.

“It requires clinics to be like a miniature hospital,” said Dalton Johnson, administrator of Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Huntsville, in an interview that appeared on al.com. The center is the only abortion clinic in north Alabama.

Meanwhile, the South Wind Women’s Clinic opened in Wichita, Kan., April 4, making abortion available in the city of 640,000 for the first time since May 2009, when Dr. George Tiller’s clinic was shut down after he was murdered by an anti-abortion rightist.

In another development, a federal judge ruled April 5 that the most common morning-after pill, Plan B One-Step and its generic versions, must be made available without a prescription for women of all ages. The ruling, which also applies to two other morning-after pills, voids a 2011 decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to require women 16 and younger to have a prescription for the pill — a decision backed by President Barack Obama.
 
 
Related articles:
Prison officials in Iowa forced to stop shackling pregnant inmates
Trotsky: ‘Abortion is key civic, political, cultural right of women’
 
 
 
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