By Dave Andrusko

New Woman All Women health care facility
I ran across a story in the Montgomery (Alabama) Advertiser today that I believe is worth a few words.
Regular readers of NRL News Today know about the laudable changes the state legislature made this last session. They are also familiar with the incredibly convoluted case of the facility in Birmingham, Alabama, formerly doing business as New Woman All Women health care facility (“Judge reaffirms order on unlicensed abortion facility in Birmingham, Alabama”).
Starting with the latter first, in August, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Joseph Boohaker issued a permanent injunction, ordering that abortions could no longer be performed at the clinic because it does not have a license to do so. One of the many reasons the case was so complicated is because the facility owners tried to split enough hairs to convince the court it didn’t qualify as an “abortion clinic” and therefore didn’t need a specific license. (If a provider performs 30 or more abortions per month during any two months, Alabama law says the facility meets the definition of an abortion clinic.)
In a one-sentence order issued August 8, Judge Boohaker said he wouldn’t reconsider his ruling shutting down what amounted to an unlicensed abortion clinic.
This came up as part of the Advertiser story, written by Brian Lyman, which talked about how the Alabama Department of Public Health is planning a hearing next Thursday “on new rules regulating abortion clinics, stemming from a law passed by the Legislature last spring.” The Department will be taking public comment at the public hearing a week from today and continuing through November 4. They are expected to go into effect in mid-December.
Part of the regulations under the “Women’s Health and Safety Act” is a definition of what an abortion clinic issue. Lyman writes
“The proposed regulations would define an abortion clinic as a place where ‘10 or more abortions are performed during any month, or where 100 or more abortions are performed in any calendar year.’”
The law, sponsored by Rep. Mary Sue McClurkin, also requires that abortion clinics “be built up to ambulatory clinic standards; that doctors at the clinics have admitting privileges with a local hospital; and that only doctors be allowed to administer abortion-inducing drugs,” according to Lyman.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson blocked the admitting privileges requirement in June, “saying it would effectively shutter three of the state’s five abortion clinics,’ Lyman wrote. “The lawsuit did not address the other regulations in the bill.” That does not mean pro-abortionists might not challenge other portions.
“Susan Watson, the executive director of the Alabama American Civil Liberties Union, said she understood that the clinics in the state were attempting to comply with the anticipated regulations,” Lyman wrote. “’If it becomes burdensome, we would take a look,’ she said.”
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