Missouri, Planned Parenthood debate 'safety concerns' at abortion clinic hearing

Authored by reuters.com and submitted by KinkyQuesadilla
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Reuters) - The fate of Missouri’s only abortion clinic was at stake on Monday, as a state arbiter heard arguments from Planned Parenthood and state officials who have threatened to close it and make Missouri the sole U.S. state without legal abortion services.

FILE PHOTO: A banner stating "STILL HERE" hangs on the side of the Planned Parenthood Building after a judge granted a temporary restraining order on the closing of Missouri's sole remaining Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. May 31, 2019. REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant/File Photo

Planned Parenthood, the women’s healthcare and abortion provider that operates the facility, sued the state health department in June for its refusal to renew the St. Louis clinic’s license. The state court judge presiding over the case referred the matter to the Administrative Hearing Commission, an independent arbiter.

The hearing, which is expected to last several days, began on Monday with opening statements from both sides and testimony from state witnesses including Donna Harrison, a doctor and director of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer said in his opening statement that the state has “very serious concerns about the safety of patients” at the clinic after at least four patients had failed abortions there.

Planned Parenthood representatives said the state’s effort to shut down the clinic was politically motivated and that the clinic should remain open to guarantee the constitutional right of the 1 million women of child-bearing age in Missouri to receive an abortion.

“Our doors are open today, they’ll be open tomorrow, and we will continue to fight like hell for access to make sure that access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care continues to be a fundamental right for women here in Missouri,” Planned Parenthood of St. Louis President Yamelsie Rodriguez told reporters.

Missouri health officials earlier this year declined to renew the clinic’s license on the grounds that it failed to meet their standards, which included mandatory interviews with several physicians involved in what the health department said were multiple life-threatening abortions at the clinic.

Planned Parenthood officials have said they do not directly employ all the clinic’s staff and cannot force them to give interviews. The organization has said the state’s effort to close the clinic is politically motivated, which the state denies.

Abortion is one of the most divisive issues in the United States, with opponents citing religious beliefs to declare it immoral, while abortion-rights activists say the procedure is legally protected and that bans rob women of control over their bodies and futures.

Missouri is one of 12 states to pass laws restricting abortion access this year, some aimed at provoking a U.S. Supreme Court review of the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman’s constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy.

Last week, Planned Parenthood opened an abortion clinic just 13 miles (21 km) from the St. Louis clinic in Fairview Heights, Illinois, capable of treating up to 11,000 patients per year.

“While we continue the fight to maintain access in Missouri, we are excited to expand our abortion services in Illinois,” Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood’s southwest regional chapter, said in a statement.

DuskTrillDawn on October 28th, 2019 at 15:42 UTC »

I used to live like 2 streets down from this clinic. There were ALWAYS protesters out there screaming at people and they made everyone feel uncomfortable who was going in or just walking near there.

forrest38 on October 28th, 2019 at 12:48 UTC »

Just a reminder that:

13/15 states with the highest rates of infant mortality voted for Trump (Missouri is 6th worst)

13/15 states with the highest rates of maternal mortality voted for Trump (Missouri is also 6th worst)

Half of these states turned down the Medicaid Expansion under Obamacare, which was literally free government money to subsidize health insurance. Republican states rejected money that would have helped pregnant mothers and their infants, yet 'Pro-Life' groups were silent.

Meanwhile:

11/15 of the states with the lowest rates of infant mortality voted for Clinton.

10/15 states with the lowest rates of maternal mortality (including the top 7) voted for Clinton.

There is only one 'Pro-life' Party in the US.

finnasota on October 28th, 2019 at 12:25 UTC »

Forcing a fetus to sentience, then throwing them into poverty or abusive foster care systems is a human suffering concern (1 third of foster care children report abuse or neglect). A 1st & early-to-mid 2nd trimester fetus can’t suffer, for the same reasons that a sperm cell cannot suffer.

There are pseudoscientific pro-life myths, that tend to heavily influence the beliefs of many. Such as the claim that fetuses can feel pain before week 24 gestation, which is scientifically proven to be false. The claim that a fetus “kicking” (responding to sound, light, and movement) is proof of sentience is absolutely false, too. Nociception is not pain reception, nor is it voluntary movement- it’s the jolting of interrupted electrical currents presenting an illusion of psychological activity.

Pro-life think tanks suchs as the Charlotte Lozier Institute make false claims that a fetus can start feeling pain at weeks 18-20 gestation. Where does this popular myth come from? By week 18 in the womb, it's possible for levels of the hormones cortisol, noradrenaline, and beta-endorphin to be released in the fetus’s body in response to bodily trauma (such as a medically-induced abortion). In adults, these hormones are released in response to stress or pain. The mere presence of these chemicals is no indicator that pain can be processed and then felt, it’s simply further proof that the fetus’s body prepares it’s functions before they can be used. This applies to every other body part as well.

So if 1st or early 2nd trimester fetuses are psychologically inactive, why can a 15-week-old fetus move and react to movement, sound, and light? It’s not by the same mechanisms that we have, or even that newborn babies have. It’s a combination of involuntary reflexes that can be triggered by outside stimuli. The fetus is twitching and flexing before this point, because there are electrical signals flowing through it. The mom feels this in the womb starting around week 15 (“kicking”), this is all due to spasms in the spinal cord caused by sonic vibration resonating through bones/tissue (this is mistaken as the fetus being able to hear), the spasms are also triggered by eye-dilation when light is shone (photoreceptor proteins near the eye absorb photons, triggering a change in the cell's membrane potential- this is mistaken as the fetus being able to see), these automatic prenatal reflexes eventually completely disappear.

Republicans want to remove childhood rape/incest exemptions for abortion because they know that they will never be able to have a system where rape victims will be forced to prove their rape to the state (who wouldn’t have the resources to process cases in time before pregnancy ended anyways).

Yet, many young rape victims- their bodies cannot handle pregnancy, they risk permanent damage to their digestive system, uterus, among other bodily functions if they carry a baby to term. Doctors shouldn’t be afraid of being accused of murder for giving good medical advice.

Republicans claim to want to keep our children safe from “sexual immorality”, yet the burden wholly falls on parents (kids suffer lifelong for their parents failures when they are forced to carry an unwanted child to term) who may not have the time to parent or watch their kids because of the economic barriers that unplanned pregnancy puts on the family and taxpayers. Republican reproductive legislation generally ends up resulting in higher teen pregnancy rates (check out the rates in the Bible Belt) because wishful, ideological grandstanding isn’t effective policy. Early comprehensive (not abstinence-only) sex ed, IUDs without parental consent, abundant clinics, and birth control coverage is what statistically results in less abortions.

Edit: To be more clear- when I say that nociception isn’t pain reception, I don’t mean that pain reception isn’t a large part of nociception, I’m just saying that “nociception” is a broader term, which exists both above and below our level of consciousness