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Supremes on abortion: Texas clinic regs upheld; North Carolina ultrasound requirement goes down



Since the only real policy fights concerning abortion anymore are the ones fought in courtrooms - and nothing is ever really decided until the Supreme Court makes a decision in some manner - the past week's outcomes of two major state cases give us a sense of what passes muster and what doesn't as states who are so inclined seek to put restrictions on the procedure. Yes, Texas, you can make abortion clinics adhere to the same standards as every other type of "medical" facility, lest we end up with more Kermit Gosnell stories:
Known as H.B. 2, the Texas law requires, among other things, that abortion clinics meet the same regulations for cleanliness and safety as other outpatient surgical facilities and that doctors working in those clinics have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. These provisions help to ensure that women are not subject to substandard conditions or practices that could jeopardize their health and even lives. Regulations like H.B. 2 are common sense and much-needed policy measures. The dangerous, unsanitary conditions of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s “house of horrors” shocked the nation when they came to light during his 2013 murder trial. But Gosnell’s clinic—though one of the more horrific—is not an outlier in the abortion industry. Dozens of other abortion clinics across the country have faced investigations, complaints, and criminal charges. Many continue their dangerous and life-ending work with little to no oversight or inspection.
But no, North Carolina, you cannot require doctors to show and describe ultrasounds to women seeking abortions:

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The appeals court wrote in December the law “imposes a virtually unprecedented burden on the right of professional speech.” “The state cannot commandeer the doctor-patient relationship to compel a physician to express its preference to the patient,” Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. “This compelled speech, even though it is a regulation of the medical profession, is ideological in intent and kind.” The Supreme Court did not list a reason in Monday’s appeals rejection. Justice Antonin Scalia dissented, but also did not detail his decision.
Strategically, you can understand why abortion opponents want more ultrasounds. The abortion rate has actually been declining in recent years, and there is a pretty strong presumption that today's clearer ultrasound images are giving the lie to the left's claim that a fetus is just a lump of tissue and not a human being. You can't see these pictures and believe that unless you're simply a cold, calculating monster who cares about nothing but the convenience of one person to the exclusion of another's very life. Then again, this is the left we're talking about. But I have long maintained the real reason we're seeing fewer abortions is not one that pro-life people should really be so happy about. I think it has more to do with the complete lack of embarrassment that these days accompanies teen and unwed motherhood. A generation ago, teen girls would have abortions not only because they weren't ready for motherhood, but also because they were terrified of their parents - and people in general - finding out they had gone and gotten themselves pregnant. It was the coverup of a shameful secret as much as a practical life decision. Today? Teens getting pregnant is no big deal. Grandparents in their 30s or 40s raising babies as proxies to their entirely unprepared teen daughters is becoming a pretty common phenomenon. Culturally this trend was long ago normalized. So there are still lots of abortions, sought by women who either don't want to go through a pregnancy or don't want the responsibility of motherhood. But the abortion-so-no-one-finds-out category is all but gone. No one will shame you now. No one thinks there's anything wrong with you hooking up with your 17-year-old boyfriend (or your 30-year-old boyfriend, dear . . . he seems nice), and isn't it wonderful that you now have your little man, who you declare to be your world except when you need to get to the mall or the bar, in which case that's what the little man's grandparents are for. The ones you still live with. I'm glad these children aren't getting aborted. They deserve a chance to live. But can we just be real here? They never should have been conceived in the first place, and they're at a huge disadvantage as they start their lives. This, more so than ultrasounds, is the reason for the decline in the abortion rate. I've never believed the left's claim that pro-life people don't care what happens to children after their born. That's self-evidently crap. Of course they care. But I'm not sure they're really prepared for the cultural shift that has helped produce so much progress in their fight. Yes, more of these children are now being born instead of being murdered. That's good news. But they're being born into households of instability and moral sloth, and in many cases there's no one to raise them well and set a good example for them. That's not a political problem. It's a cultural one. I don't think we solve those nearly as well.


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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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