THE NATION - Judge weighs abortion standard - Missouri would regulate facilities that commonly offer early terminations, even by pill, as centers for outpatient surgery.
COLUMBIA, MO. — A first-trimester surgical abortion takes about two minutes. After, patients at the Planned Parenthood clinic here walk down a dimly lighted hall to a small, spare recovery room, where they rest in recliners, a box of tissues by each chair. Most are cleared to go home after 15 minutes.
Thousands of women have safely ended pregnancies at this clinic since it opened in 1987. Conservative lawmakers in Missouri say abortion patients deserve better.
They have enacted the most far-reaching regulations in the nation -- dictating the physical layout, staffing and record-keeping policies of any facility that performs five or more abortions a month, including private doctors' offices that regularly prescribe the abortion pill.
The law, which a federal judge is to review today, would force the immediate closure of at least two of Missouri's three abortion clinics, plus a private medical practice near St. Louis run by a doctor who offers first-trimester terminations in his office. Those facilities would need extensive renovations to comply with the law; the requirements could include widening hallways, raising ceilings, installing locker rooms, rerouting plumbing, and creating surgical suites stocked with emergency resuscitation equipment, even when no surgery is performed on-site.
Several states impose similarly rigorous standards on providers of second- and third-trimester abortions. Missouri is the first to try to extend them to clinics and private offices that only provide the abortion pill, which has been used by nearly 800,000 women nationwide to end early pregnancies.
The law would put providers of five or more abortions a month in the same regulatory category as outpatient surgical centers that perform a wide range of procedures, some under general anesthesia, including tonsillectomies, cardiac catheterization, hernia repair, cataract removal and colonoscopy.
When he signed the bill in July in the sanctuary of a Baptist church, Republican Gov. Matt Blunt called it "one of the strongest pieces of pro-life legislation in Missouri history."
Abortion-rights groups call it alarming. If upheld, the law could inspire similar tactics in other conservative state legislatures; Missouri has long been regarded as a pioneer in developing antiabortion strategy.
"This is really a case to watch," said Belinda Bulger, deputy legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "The anti-choice movement has discovered that this is a good tactic for them. . . . It certainly has us concerned."
