Ridiculous Amendment To Indiana Abortion Law Forces Clinic To Prepare For Abortions It Doesn’t Perform

If “pro-lifers” would put some effort into something else besides setting up roadblocks for women’s health care clinics, they could truly get some things accomplished. They seem to have a lot of time on their hands – as evidenced by some legislation that was crafted in Indiana – singling out one woman’s health care clinic – forcing the clinic to prepare for abortions it does not perform.

The Indiana State Department of Health revised an abortion law to “change the definition of “abortion clinic” to include facilities whose only abortion service is the provision of the abortion pill, a nonsurgical method of ending a pregnancy.”

Under the new law, clinics that offer only non-surgical abortion alternatives would still be forced to maintain separate surgical, recovery and scrub rooms. There is only one such clinic in the state of Indiana. So basically, they amended the abortion law to effectively put up a roadblock that would potentially shut down one Planned Parenthood. Wow.

Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the Indiana State Department of Health over the revised abortion law, which PPINK argues is “discriminatory and unconstitutional.” From the Huffington Post:

PPINK President and CEO Betty Cockrum added, “This law is clearly part of a coordinated national effort to end access to safe, legal abortion by trying to shut down Planned Parenthood health care centers, which also provide Pap tests, breast and testicular exams, birth control and STD testing and treatment.”

Now Planned Parenthood has to use money and resources to fight this ridiculous law, rather than funneling it into services that are sorely needed by women. When will the “pro-life” movement realize that attacking centers that provide family planning and health resources to women is only going to make the necessity for abortion greater?

Oops. I’m using logic where logic doesn’t live. My bad.

(photo: Flickr/CreativeCommons/ Steve Rhodes)