CMA doctors lament Supreme Court decision upending women's health protections in abortion clinics as ensuring "back-alley abortions"

Washington, DC, June 27, 2016—The 17,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org) today lamented the Supreme Court's 5-3 decision to overturn a lower court ruling that upheld a Texas law protecting the health of women in abortion clinics.

CMA CEO Dr. David Stevens declared in a statement, "Given the shocking revelations of abysmal health and safety deficiencies in abortion clinics around the country, the Court's disallowance of health and safety requirements just protects what amount to back-alley abortions.

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"Texas had the courage to require medically appropriate measures to protect women in abortion clinics, where state investigations had uncovered gross negligence and health hazards. The Supreme Court today upended those reasonable, medically necessary safety and health protections in favor of abortion ideology.

"We hear over and over the abortion mantra, 'safe, legal and rare.' But with over a million abortions a year and courts preventing even modest health and safety regulations, abortion is only legal—not at all safe or rare."

An amicus brief filed in  Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt for CMA by Alliance Defending Freedom highlighted the state's interest in protecting women's health by passing reasonable protections that rationally relate to health risks: "Texas' law appropriately expresses Texas's constitutional interest in safeguarding women's health and maintaining medical standards. The Ambulatory surgical center requirements rationally relate to Texas's legitimate interest in upholding consistent standards for outpatient abortion providers. The admitting privileges requirement rationally relates to Texas's legitimate interest in regulating outpatient abortion."

CMA Executive Vice President Dr. Gene Rudd, an obstetrician-gynecologist, added, "Surgical and drug-induced abortion carry significant risks to the mother that require timely care and continuity of care. The way to ensure adequate care when abortion complications occur is to require that the physician who performed the procedure that resulted in the complication be able to assure rapid treatment of the patient. That needs to be done in a medical facility properly equipped to care for these types of surgical emergencies."

As CMA's brief noted, "That is exactly why ambulatory surgical facilities require admitting privileges for physicians performing surgery comparable to elective abortion, and exactly why Texas needs this law to ensure the health and safety of women undergoing both medical and surgical abortion."