(November 12, 2014 ??? New Orleans, LA) This week, Life Legal Defense Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to uphold a Texas abortion law, requiring abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges and abortion facilities to meet the same safety standards as other surgical centers. The 5th Circuit has already upheld the rest of the abortion facility requirements.
???Obviously, an abortionist has no concern for the life or health of the baby he or she is aborting,??? said Dana Cody, President and Executive Director of Life Legal Defense Foundation, ???but to refuse to safeguard the well-being of the mother is criminally negligent.??? Cody explained that objection to the Texas law must be driven by the pursuit of profit and not pro-abortion ideology, because these requirements actually bolster the ???keep it safe and legal??? war cry of abortion advocates. ???Abortion is an invasive surgical procedure that involves slicing in or suctioning from a woman???s womb,??? Cody added, ???We would not think of allowing appendectomies without these safeguards. To oppose them for women seeking abortions is discriminatory, prejudicial, even barbaric.???
In the lower court ruling, Judge Lee Yeakel of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, perceived the law as imposing an undue burden on abortion-seeking women. The rationale given was that the law that would limit the number of outlets selling abortions.
The Life Legal Defense Foundation brief, filed in partnership with Alliance Defending Freedom and others, argues against that supposition:
???Indeed, Texas has more than enough potential abortion providers to provide abortions throughout the State, even in those areas the district court seemed most concerned with, El Paso and McAllen, Texas. There are several hospitals in both of those areas, and scores of doctors with admitting privileges to those hospitals. The obstacle abortion clinics face in those communities is not a shortage of eligible doctors, but a shortage of eligible doctors willing to perform abortions. Thus, if there is a burden on women who may seek an abortion in those areas, the burden is caused not by Texas unduly restricting the number of eligible doctors, but by the unwillingness of most eligible doctors to perform abortions.???
Others joining Life Legal Defense Foundation and Alliance Defending Freedom in the brief include Texas Center for Defense of Life, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Donna Harrison, M.D, Abby Johnson, And Then There Were None, Carol Everett, and The Heidi Group.
Read the amicus curiae brief file by Life Legal Defense Foundation and the others here
About Life Legal Defense Foundation
Life Legal Defense Foundation was established in 1989, and is a nonprofit organization composed of attorneys and other concerned citizens committed to giving helpless and innocent human beings of any age, and their advocates, a trained and committed voice in the courtrooms of our nation. For more information about the Life Legal Defense Foundation, visitwww.lldf.org
