Way back in 2015, the people's representatives in the Arkansas Legislature passed a bill that, if you believed Planned Parenthood's spokesflacks, was the end of constitutional government. Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! Lawmakers had passed Arkansas Act 577, saying that doctors had to follow Federal Drug Administration protocols when handing out abortion drugs--which required them to contract with a doctor who has admitting privileges to a hospital, should something go wrong during an abortion.
To some of us, such a law sounded like common sense. But in late December of 2015, Planned Parenthood made a federal case of it.
That outfit, while telling the public the law was a back-door attempt to ban all abortions, told the courts it couldn't find a doctor with those credentials. In fact, it had "exhausted all our connections." And only a handful of doctors even considered working with them.
According to court documents filed by the organization: "The others either refused to call us back or told us they could not contract with [Planned Parenthood] because of fear of stigma and harassment from being associated with an abortion provider; employers or partners did not want to be associated with an abortion provider; or because they do not support a woman's right to choose."
During the long legal battle that followed, several courts ruled back and forth on the matter. Last year, after a panel of judges ruled against the pro-abortion crowd, attorneys with Planned Parenthood said the ruling would "effectively ban medication abortion statewide and leave only one remaining abortion provider" in the state.
After one court ruling went their way this past summer, and after Attorney General Leslie Rutledge expressed disappointment in the ruling, a lawyer for Planned Parenthood said this: "Let's be honest. The attorney general wants to shut down abortion clinics. . . . Let's not insult women and say this is about their health. She is using the subterfuge of saying this law is to help women's health."
Whenever somebody starts off a thought by saying "Let's be honest," we have to ask ourselves if that's a clue that, this time at least, the person really is being honest--and everything said before might not have been.
After all the ashes and sackcloth, after all the warnings about this law ending abortion in Arkansas, after all the times the pro-abortion crowd told the courts that the law could not be complied with, that they had exhausted all our connections years ago, this week Planned Parenthood said . . . .
Never mind.
Earlier this week, Planned Parenthood asked the courts to dismiss its case. While saying that the law was still unconstitutional, it said it found a doctor.
Which implies that it hadn't exhausted all its connections years ago. An unidentified doctor apparently came forward and the law can be implemented--when the courts finally clear all the lawsuits away.
Gentle Reader should keep this in mind the next time attorneys and spokesmen for Planned Parenthood start warning against a falling sky.
Then again, we might not expect any better from the folks who gave us "Pro Choice" and "Pregnancy Related Services." Or, for that matter, "Planned Parenthood."
Editorial on 11/07/2018