from Our Word
Governor Mel Blunt signed an omnibus bill to restrict access to abortion in Missouri only weeks ago, but the sole abortion providing facility in Springfield, Missouri has already been forced to close its doors–leaving women in that region 160 miles away from the nearest doctor who is willing to provide abortion care.
The new law requires that doctors who perform abortions must hold professional privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of any location where an abortion is performed. But abortion providing physicians now have become such a rare breed that many must travel considerable distances, so that the nearest hospital where a doctor has admitting privileges can lie much farther than 30 miles away from the clinic where she or he provides abortion care.
Like all TRAP laws, its provisions might apply to doctors, but women are the ones who get trapped.
The clinic filed a legal challenge and won a temporary injunction to stave off implementation of the law, but all hospitals in the area – evidently bending to the prevailing political winds — have refused to consider granting privileges to the clinic’s doctor. The Springfield clinic’s director, Michelle Collins, explains, “It’s just so difficult to provide abortions for patients here when there’s zero support from the medical community.”
As a result of the clinic’s closing, the lawsuit will be dropped. “The law will now come into effect very quickly,” Sam Lee of Campaign Life Missouri said.
According to Collins, the clinic asked 10 to 15 local physicians and out-of-town doctors if they would offer the procedure, and all have declined.
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Dave Plemmons, chair of the Springfield chapter of Missouri Right to Life, said the organization will work against any provider trying to fill the closing clinic’s place by offering abortions.
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Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri President Peter Brownlie said that the closing of the clinic will further restrict a woman’s access to abortion, adding, “Women have … a legal right” to reproductive health care procedures, but “that right becomes pretty hollow if there isn’t a facility to meet” women’s needs. Lee said the clinic’s closing is “unexpected but great news.”Jessica Robinson, a spokesperson for Blunt, said, “The governor hopes this closing will move Missourians to consider alternatives to abortion so that our state can move forward in embracing a culture that values human life.”
It seems particularly ironic that this new law devaluing the human lives of women was heavily promoted and sponsored by an all-woman coalition of pro-“life” legislators including Democrats for Life All-Stars Belinda Harris and Kate Meiners — Our Loyal Democratic Sisters — in enthusiastic collaboration with the ongoing right wing crusade to persuade women to “move forward in embracing” compulsory childbearing.
