Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed into law a bill on Wednesday that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic. HB 1848 also requires the Oklahoma Board of Health to establish standards around equipment and supplies that may be necessary if a medical emergency occurs.
Admitting privileges do not increase patient safety – complications from legal abortion are rare – and privileges can be extremely difficult to obtain. A hospital may not be located within 30 miles of the clinic, especially in rural areas; hospitals may refuse to provide privileges because of religious affiliation or fear of anti-choice protesters and violence; and clinics in smaller cities must often use visiting doctors who are ineligible for admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Because hospitals will admit women suffering from abortion complications anyway, the requirement is nothing but a strategy to close clinics and reduce access to abortion.
They are “a veiled attempt to really close down clinics in the name of women’s health,” said Tamya Cox, staff attorney of lobbysit for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland.
These laws and the resulting closures of clinics leave many women without access to vital abortion services. Some already have to drive hundreds of miles or across state lines to get to the nearest clinic, but if multiple states continue to pass these laws, even those limited options may disappear. “We are deeply concerned that women in a vast stretch of this country are in real danger of losing the ability to access legal abortion safely,” said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement after Louisiana’s legislature passed their admitting privileges law last week.
A law implementing admitting privileges requirements in Texas has caused at least 20 clinics in Texas to close. Alabama and Mississippi have also passed similar laws, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is expected to sign one into law soon as well. Only one of Oklahoma’s three clinics already has admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, so the other two may be forced to close when the law goes into effect on November 1.
Media Resources: Reuters 5/28/14; The New York Times 3/6/14, 5/28/14; Tulsa World 5/30/14; Planned Parenthood Federation of America 5/21/14; Feminist Newswire 7/24/13, 8/19/13, 5/22/14
