I’ve been too busy (book deadline is Sunday) to write about MO, so I’ll give you my quick rundown now. joplinglobe.com/news/local_new…
what’s about to happen, if you cut through all the legal talk, is that Columbia will not be able to do abortions immediately
that means St. Louis will be the only clinic that can in the state, and they will be *technically* in violation of the law but given a waiver.
the ASC standards exist purposefully so a clinic can’t stay open. But the waiver idea is brilliant. It’s basically the state saying “you can stay open until we decide we are ready to close you."
It’s essentially how Ohio has been closing down their clinics one by one - waiver, waiver, waiver, oh hey, now we want to close this one, no more waiver. By doing it one at a time, it’s way more difficult for a legal team to claim undue burden.
I wrote about that tactic back a few years ago. Since then, Ohio has shuttered even more. I think there are 9, two are med only, and one full service is in the process of being closed theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
point being, as much as MO abortion opponents WANT to shut down that last clinic, they also don’t want MO to be the state where they test this “having abortion legal but no clinics doesn’t violate Roe” argument.
don’t get me wrong - that’s a fight they want to have (and is one of the many ways they very well may come at it in a Kavanaugh court). But they don’t think MO is the place to do it in.
My guess is they will argue it out on a different state, first. Most likely Mississippi. They’ve set the stage for that one for a while.
of all the “one clinic” states, it has the shortest period of gestation that abortion is available during, the most conservative population, and the most abortion clinics within an area around it that are outside the state.
and yes, I utterly appreciate the irony in claiming that abortion is more accessible in the south in this case. But if you compare to, say, ND/SD, well, there are technically more clinics in nearby states for MS. It’s just that the south has way more population flooding theirs
anyway, long story short, one of the first cases before a Kavanaugh filled court would be “does a state HAVE to have an abortion clinic to still claim abortion is legal.” And either that court will say no, or refuse to hear the case, which will be the same thing.
and that will be a case that probably involves Mississippi. And Missouri will lie in wait for that decision, and then pull their waiver for St Louis after that is done.
and yes, that’s the junk my brain works through when I’m avoiding a deadline.
