Columbia, SC — Since a federal judge ruled last month that the state's new pro-life regulations on abortion facilities are constitutional, five have met the new requirements and received a license. However, one has closed and others face increasing costs associated with compliance.
That five who have complied includes three abortion facilities that fought the new regulations in federal court, said Jan Easterling, a spokesman for the state health department. In Beaufort, a Planned Parenthood abortion facility qualified for the license but has since closed, she said.
The new regulations have followed a winding trail from their passage by the state General Assembly in 1996 to U.S. District Judge Henry Herlong Jr.'s ruling in September that they are constitutional. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a stay filed on the behalf of abortion facilities who say the state's new abortion laws are unnecessary and unconstitutional.
The new regulations, which apply to facilities that perform more than five abortions per month, set standards on such things as airflow and doorway widths and require abortion facilities to provide all patient information to the state. They also require a registered nurse to be on duty and that a list of counselors, which includes clergy and psychologists, must be provided to women seeking abortions.
Chris Jueske, chief executive of South Carolina Planned Parenthood, said the pro-abortion organization had complied with the regulations. The group's abortion facility in Beaufort has since closed. “The regulations were a contributing factor,” he said.
The new regulations had increased costs for Planned Parenthood's facility that does abortions in Columbia, but Jueske will have no estimates of how much it has increased for at least six months.
“It has clearly increased our operating costs, and we have increased our prices. However, our prices have not gone up as much as our costs, and we're trying to cut costs elsewhere without further price increases,” he said. Planned Parenthood has increased its charge for a first-trimester abortion from $380 to $395 over the past few months, he said.
When the rules were passed by the General Assembly, the state had 10 abortion facilities, Easterling said. Since then, two abortion practitioners who owned a total of four clinics in the state have passed away and their offices have closed, she said.
For more information, contact: South Carolina Citizens for Life, PO Box 5865, Columbia, SC 29250, (803) 252-5433.
(This article courtesy of the Pro-Life Infonet email newsletter. For more information or to subscribe go to www.prolifeinfo.org or email infonet@prolifeinfo.org.)
