The Glade 4.0

If the procedure goes downhill, he needs to be able to admit the patient. This is for the safety of the patient, and has nothing to do with denying access or rights to abortion.

Fair enough. I wasn't aware that was a thing.

Can a doctor not just send a patient to an ER if things go tits up?

The bill (SB5) was an omnibus bill that was 4 bills rolled into one. They would:

1. Mandate all doctors that preform abortions have hospital admittance privileges within 30 miles of the procedure
   
2. Implement "minimum standards" for all abortions clinics, even the ones that don't preform surgical abortions and just give prescriptions for the abortion pill under 9 weeks of pregnancy.
   
3. Set new (outdated) requirements for the abortion pill
   
4. Ban abortions after 20 weeks with only a slim SLIM exception for specific fatal fetal anomalies.

These bills would do the following things:

1. Make it harder for physicians to be able to provide abortions legally. Hospital admittance privileges are hard to get. Compile that with the fact that most hospitals aren't willing to undergo the negative attention it would draw for giving privileges to abortion providers and you would create a shortage of doctors in the field. Most hospitals, whether sympathetic or not, wouldn't be willing to subject itself, employees, or patients to the almost certain pickets and protests from pro-life groups that would result.
   
2. It would mandate that all abortion clinics, even women's health clinics that don't provide surgical abortions but have the abortion pill, become ambulatory surgical centers. This would cost around $1.5 million or more for each clinic to upgrade and would increase their monthly costs something like $40,000+ a month. This is why all but the already 5 abortion centers that are already surgical centers would close. They would not be able to afford the upgrades. Beyond that if any clinic could afford the upgrades the estimated increase of cost of abortions in those clinics would be about 3 fold. The current cost of the average abortion here is about $420 and it would go up to about $1200 making it totally unaffordable to poor and lower class women.
   
3. It would require doctors administering the abortion pill to do so as set by FDA standards which is about 20 years outdated and includes doses that are three times higher than what doctors actually provide for their patients. This would also (combined with a previous ultrasound and 24 hr mandatory waiting period) force women who seek the abortion drug to make 4 separate visits to the doctor. This of course combined with the closings of the clinics would make abortions almost impossible to get for rural women in south, west, or north Texas. A number of Texas women will have to travel 600+ miles to the closest clinic and will either be forced to stay in that city for each visit (one of which is 14 days after the procedure) or she'll be forced to drive over 1,000 miles for the abortion. The cost of these trips combined with the new increases in abortion would make it unfordable for the average Texas woman. Beyond that there is a provision in this section that says women who seek abortions because of miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy aren't really having "abortions" and are therefore exempt from the new "safety standards". Now why in the hell would they exempt the women who need the procedure the most from the new "safety standards" if they were worried about safety?
   
4. This part of the bill I find personally disturbing as I am prepared to start having children with my husband this year. Only 1.5% of abortions take place after 20 weeks and many are done on wanted pregnancies. Most women do not find out something is wrong with the fetus or pregnancy until the 18-20 week fetal scans. The fetus isn't large enough to detect structural problems before then. There is only a slim exception for anomalies that says "in a physician's reasonable medical judgment, will result in the death of the infant not later than minutes to hours after birth" It is absurd to expect doctors to predict the survivability down to the minutes or hours of babies with extreme fetal anomalies. Beyond that it has no exception for amniotic fluid drainage and all but specifically does not cover cases when women are diagnosed with things like cancer and need treatment. It also has no exception for the mental health of the mother which becomes an issue with mentally unstable or handicapped women. This part of the bill would force women to carry unhealthy pregnancies to term. It would also force unhealthy women to carry pregnancies to term that threaten their well being.

So, as you can see this bill will shut down all but 5 of the abortion clinics in the state, force women to drive possibly over 1,000 miles to the nearest clinic, increase the cost of abortions, and yes will also ban abortions after 20 weeks, even for women in terrible situations.

Aside from all of that the Texas Hospital Association announced that the wording in the medical abortion section would prevent their ability to provide prenatal care to women miscarrying. All of the medical associations in the state have publicly denounced and condemned these bills and asked the state not to pass them. These bills are dangerous and will not only hurt women seeking abortions but will hurt pregnant women who aren't as well.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

Dear Representative:
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), is an organization with more than 58,000 OB/GYNs and partners in women's health across the U.S. The Texas District of ACOG has a membership of 3,600 OB/GYNs and partners in health.

ACOG supports robust, factual debate on issues relating to women's health. The bills being debated t oday on the House floor are not based on sound science or current medican standards; they create obstacles for women seeking certain helathcare services - putting women at risk, and are simply designed to harass women. In some cases, these bills criminalize doctors.

As concerned physicians who pride ourselves in providing the best healthcare for women, we urge you to vote NO on SB 5 by Senator Hegar, HB 60 by Representative Laubenberg, and HB 16 by Representative Laubenberg.

• SB 5, HB 60, and HB 16 will not enhance patient safety or improve the quality of care that women receive.
• SB 5, HB 60, and HB 16 do not promote women's health, but erode it by denying women in Texas the benefits of well-researched, safe, and proven protocols.
• SB 5, HB 60, and HB 16 interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and tie our hands when developing individual care plans for our patients.

We stand ready as a resource on these issues and look forward to working with you to ensure that legislation harmful to the health of Texas women does not pass.

Respectfully,
Lisa M. Holler, MD, MPH, FACOG
Chair, Texas District American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Texas lawmakers set to try again to pass abortion limits, after 1st attempt dies in filibuster

AUSTIN, Texas — After a one-woman filibuster and a raucous crowd helped derail a GOP-led effort to restrict Texas abortions, Gov. Rick Perry announced Wednesday that he’s calling lawmakers back next week to try again.

Perry ordered the Legislature to meet July 1 to begin 30 more days of work. Like the first special session, which ended in chaos overnight, the second one will include on its agenda a Republican-backed plan that critics say would close nearly every abortion clinic across the state and impose other widespread limits on the procedure.

“I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas,” Perry said in a statement. “Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn.”

The first session’s debate over abortion restrictions led to the most chaotic day in the Texas Legislature in modern history, starting with a marathon filibuster and ending with a down-to-the wire, frenetic vote marked by questions about whether Republicans tried to break chamber rules and jam the measure through.

A second filibuster is harder to pull off though, since supporters of the bill will ensure it clear preliminary hurdles and reaches floor votes in the House and Senate well before the second session expires.

The governor can convene as many extra sessions as he likes and sets the agenda of what lawmakers can work on. Also listed on the session’s agenda are separate bills to boost highway funding and deal with a juvenile justice issue.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who oversees the flow of legislation in the Senate, hinted that another special session was coming when he told lawmakers “see you soon” after the first session adjourned.

Many of the same abortion rights groups that staged Tuesday’s night’s protests took to Twitter on Wednesday, promising they had more in store.

The entire process starts over, with bills that must be filed by individual lawmakers, undergo a public hearing and be passed out of committee before they can be considered by both chambers.

Still, supporters are likely to draft a measure similar to the one that nearly passed during the first special session. It sought a statewide ban on undergoing the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the point at which anti-abortion activists claim a fetus can feel pain — despite a lack of scientific evidence to support that.

That bill also would have forced many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities to be classified as ambulatory surgical centers. Doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles.

Democrats put their hopes of thwarting the bill Tuesday in the hands of Wendy Davis, a state senator clad in pink running shoes, for a daylong attempt to talk the bill to death. Over the duration of the speech, Davis became a social media star, even becoming the subject of a tweet from President Obama for her efforts.

But just before midnight, Republicans claimed she strayed off topic and got help with a back brace — two things that are against filibuster rules — and cut her off.

That cleared the way for a vote.

But when Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst shouted into the microphone, trying to call the final votes, nobody seemed to hear him. Some 400 supporters jammed into the gallery had taken their feet with a deafening roar, drowning out his voice. It was, as some claimed, a “people’s filibuster” — an attempt by protesters to finish what Davis had started more than 11 hours earlier.

“Get them out!” Republican Sen. Donna Campbell shouted to a security guard. “... I want them out of here!”

As the crowd clapped and shouted “shame, shame, shame,” Dewhurst gathered Republican lawmakers around Secretary of the Senate Patsy Spaw to register their votes. Democrats ran forward, holding up their cellphones, which showed it was past midnight.

But Dewhurst and other Republicans insisted the first vote was cast before midnight by the Legislature’s clock and that the bill had passed.

By the time decorum was restored and the 19-10 vote in favor of the measure was recorded, the clock read 12:03 a.m. Confusion took over: The Republicans had passed the bill, but did it count? Were the votes tallied in time?

Reporters checked the Senate’s official website and saw the vote registered on Wednesday, after the deadline. But a short time later, the website was updated to show the vote on Tuesday. Sen. Chuy Hinojosa produced two official printouts of the vote, each showing a different day for the same vote.

After protests from angry Democrats, senators met privately with Dewhurst for more than an hour. Eventually, he returned to the then-empty Senate chamber and declared that while the bill had passed, he didn’t have time to sign it, so it wasn’t approved. In return for declaring the measure dead, Democrats promised not to question the date of the vote any further.

While altering a public record is illegal, stopping the clock to allow for a vote or changing the journal before it is published are long traditions in the Texas Legislature and unlikely to lead to a prosecution.

The law’s provision that abortions be performed at surgical centers means only five of Texas’ 42 abortion clinics would remain in operation in a state 773 miles wide and 790 miles long with 26 million people. A woman living along the Mexico border or in West Texas would have to drive hundreds of miles to obtain an abortion.

Conservatives and anti-abortion campaigners joined Dewhurst in condemning the “unruly mob” for violating the Senate’s decorum by screaming obscenities at Republican backers of the bill.

Texas Democrats, though, see an opportunity to capitalize just months after setting up a grassroots organization called “Battleground Texas” with a $36 million cash infusion. And they circled around Davis — the teen mom turned Harvard Law School grad whose Twitter followers rocketed from 1,200 to 83,000 in just 24 hours.

“As Sen. Wendy Davis most powerfully emphasized, Democrats are not afraid of a fight,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, Texas Democratic Party chairman. “Last night was a turning point in that story of Texas.”

3) It would require doctors administering the abortion pill to do so as set by FDA standards which is about 20 years outdated - Oh so doctors in other specialities are free to ignore the FDA standards for medicines because they are "about" 20 years outdated?

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Yes, they are. If a drug is FDA approved, a doctor can prescribe it pretty much however they want and for whatever they want.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

Entirely wrong. Knowingly writing prescriptions of a FDA-approved drugs for off-label usage is a federal crime for which a physician can lose his license, be fined, and/or possibly go to jail.

Is this one of those semantic things where I'm missing a small point that makes my statement incorrect? Because Googling "Is off-label drug use legal?" gives me a long list of sites that say it is.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/late-term-abortion-ban-more-popular-among-women-than-obamacare/article/2532458

Late Term abortion more popular amoung women then Obamacare.

Late-term abortion ban more popular among women than Obamacare

You left out a crucial word there Festie.

The bill also makes ultrasounds mandatory for any woman seeking an abortion, requires doctors to give women medically disputed information about pain felt by fetuses and mention the disputed link between abortion and breast cancer, lengthens the mandatory waiting period before an abortion, and threatens physicians with a felony and an unprecedented fine of up to $1 million if they fail to comply with the laws.

"There are far too many stories of mothers under the negligent care of abortionists eager to perform abortions on mothers without even confirming a woman's pregnancy," state Rep. Ron Hood (R), the sponsor of the bill, said at a Wednesday hearing. "Abortion procedures are costly. And the providers who rush into performing abortions without confirming a pregnancy stand to gain financially."

Under current Ohio law, doctors are not required to conduct ultrasounds but must show their patients the ultrasound images if they do. Hood's bill, House Bill 200, would require doctors to perform an ultrasound, show it to the mother and give her a detailed description of "all relevant features" of the fetus and its ability to feel pain. (Whether fetuses can feel pain is disputed.)

The bill expands Ohio's mandatory waiting period from 24 to 48 hours and prohibits doctors from waiving that waiting period in cases of medical emergency. It would also require doctors to give women a conflict of interest disclaimer stating their gross income from the previous year, the percentage of that income that came from performing abortions, and the specific amount of money they would lose if the woman decided to carry her pregnancy to term.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

(B) "Fetus" means the human offspring developing during pregnancy from the moment of conception and includes the embryonic stage of development.