JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A judge on Monday temporarily blocked Missouri’s health department from revoking the abortion license held by a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia as its physician loses hospital privileges required under state law.
The clinic stopped terminating pregnancies last week, but Planned Parenthood filed a federal lawsuit Monday in hopes of retaining its abortion facility license from the state Department of Health and Senior Services while its physician regains privileges or the clinic finds a new doctor. U.S. District Judge Nanette K. Laughrey issued her order at the end of a hearing by telephone conference call.
Laughrey’s order will remain in effect only until Wednesday to give attorneys a chance to address several legal issues. The judge scheduled another telephone conference call for Wednesday afternoon.
Missouri law requires a physician who performs abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Amid an investigation of abortion by the Republican-controlled Legislature, a University of Missouri Health Care system medical staff panel voted in September to discontinue the form of privileges granted to Planned Parenthood doctor Colleen McNicholas, effective Tuesday.
That action prompted the health department to notify Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri that the abortion facility license for its Columbia clinic would be revoked, also effective Tuesday. Missouri now has only one clinic performing abortions, in St. Louis.
“This was happening as a result of political pressure put on the university,” said Laura McQuade, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood chapter.
Planned Parenthood attorneys argued that the clinic’s right to due legal process was violated because it didn’t get enough time to remedy the issue with McNicholas’ privileges. The lawsuit noted that the clinic retained its license even when it didn’t have a physician from June 2012 to September 2013 and said forcing the clinic to reapply would result in “significant costs.”
Missouri Solicitor General James Layton argued in that Planned Parenthood still can seek an administrative review of the licensing decision, making its lawsuit premature. He rejected the argument that the health department has given Planned Parenthood too little time.
“They’ve known for years that the statute requires privilege,” Layton said. “They’ve known at least since sometime in September that their doctor was going to lose the privilege.”
Kansas enacted a similar requirement in 2011 but hasn’t been able to enforce it because of a state-court lawsuit filed by two abortion providers. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing regulations enacted by Texas in 2013 that include a requirement that providers have hospital admitting privileges.
At the University of Missouri’s flagship Columbia campus, interim Chancellor Hank Foley said he will continue to support the decision of the health system’s staff panel to discontinue the “refer and follow” privileges that McNicholas held. She’s now seeking different privileges.
“The issue of abortion invokes much depth of emotion and passion; I understand this,” Foley said in a statement. “However, as a state and federally funded university with a health system, we are required to follow applicable state and federal laws.”
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas.
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Follow John Hanna on Twitter at https://twitter.com/apjdhanna .
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This area is covered by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The neighboring 7th Circuit recently issued a 2:1 decision [ http://tiny.cc/1gtx6x ] that, if not completely on point, has reasoning in it that completely encompasses the Missouri situation.
U.S. federal District Court trial level judges are bound by on-point decisions of the SCOTUS and the Circuit Court that covers their territory. Beyond that, there’s a judicial custom - more than a tradition, less than a binding rule - that requires a judge in the position that FCJ Laughery is in to either ‘defer’ [like default] to the decisions of other federal Circuit Courts, especially those on point or encompassing the entire issue, unless they can find some relevant fact that distinguishes them from what’s before the trial level judge.
AFAIK what the Missouri AG is arguing is that PP had the chance to seek judicial review of the legislation and didn’t, so it’s stuck with the consequences.That’s almost entirely a procedural objection and I just don’t know enough about how the Missouri legislature went about this to know whether and to what extent it might hold water. I SUSPECT that the Missouri legislature process was quite different from how the Wisconsin legislature proceeded to come up with the subject-matter of the 7th Circuit decision; for example, it’s possible that the way in which the Missouri legislature process went didn’t allow for judicial review unless and until the components of the legislation were activated - a VERY common feature of ALEC-inspired legislation, designed to hide controversial legislation ‘in plain sight’ as it were until public attention recedes, and then to force challengers into restrictions on standing to the specific component that’s been activitated. If that’s more or less what’s happened here in this Missouri case, then the Missouri AG is completely full of shit.
Did she lose her privileges because of the ‘ick’ factor? Or was it personal?
Wonder how many of the area’s other doctors have had their privileges revoked? Or was it personal?
Wonder how many of the health center’s current physicians are willing to provide abortions? Or is it because they’re afraid they’ll be singled out for abuse, harassment, or murder?
The first part of one sentence in Chancellor Foley’s statement:
is irrelevant to the second part:
Analysis: word fog
Diagnosis: Interim Chancellor Foley tastes like chicken
The decision of the executive committee of the medical staff of MU Health Care was clearly a political one. An official U of M press release on the decision to end the “refer and follow” category notes:
The student newspaper went for truth over diplomacy:
Several members of the Missouri legislature prompted the review of MU Health Care’s policies and privileges, including Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia.
Schaefer is chairman of the Missouri Senate Interim Committee on the Sanctity of Life, and has been harassing the University as part of his efforts to make safe and legal abortion unavailable to women in Missouri.
It appears to me that MU Health Care could have retained Dr. McNicholas’ privileges while eliminating the specific “refer and follow” category:
So why wouldn’t a doctor with “refer and follow” privileges be able to retain “refer” privileges if the “follow” part of the privileges had become redundant?
Management of MU Health Care appears to be setting up the next obstacle to any Planned Parenthood doctor getting admitting privileges:
More or less follow your very technical explanation. Isn’t the rub really that the State is trying to use procedural gymnastics to deprive citizens of an established Constitutional right, leaving the question, do they have a sufficiently valid basis to do so? Beyond mere rational foundation hopefully?
Duh - Of course they have no rational basis!
Every physician in every hospital ER has admitting privileges and they do the admitting when a patient has complications from outpatient surgery as they have done in the past, as they are doing in the present, and as they will be doing tomorrow.
Do you people think that the ER physician is going to leave the patient dying while the outpatient surgeon is tracked down and comes over to the hospital?
The patient’s own doctor will consult about care with the attending physician assigned by the hospital, as they have done in the past, as they are doing in the present, and as they will be doing tomorrow.
If this was not merely a TRAP law why aren’t outpatient oral and plastic surgeons required ho have admitting privileges also?
Sheesh - How hard is this to understand?