A new law in Louisiana requires a 30-day “waiting period” between having a blood test that determines pregnancy, and the actual abortion procedure. The law also requires the size of abortion clinics to be much larger than current requirements permit. The speculation is that the majority of abortion clinics will have to shut down because they won’t have the money to make the procedure rooms the “proper” size—three times the size that most of them currently are. Normal hospitals aren’t even required to have such large facilities.
The law went into effect on November 20, 2013 but state health officials have not yet made any moves to write citations, or push clinics to build “properly sized” operating and recovery rooms. The law was not directly communicated to any clinics until the regulations were published as “emergency rules,” however, the law may actually be putting women at risk since the procedure gets more complicated as time goes on. Since Louisiana prohibits abortion after 20 weeks, a woman who tries to get an abortion at 16 weeks may have to find a way to get an illegal procedure done. This is a very narrow window of time. A public hearing will be held on January 29th to address the new regulations. Is this an attempt at an abortion ban? We’ll let you decide.
Image: neontommy.com
