Planned Parenthood claims it’s cancelling abortion appointments in Arkansas this week, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider a challenge to a state law.
The law requires doctors providing medication abortions (abortion pills) to have a contract with a doctor that has hospital admitting privileges.
NBC’s sympathetic report on the issue kicks off with how disappointed Planned Parenthood is that the amount of babies they can kill has been diminished.
From NBC:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively let Arkansas' law restricting medication abortions — in which women are given pills that cause a process similar to a miscarriage in the early stages of pregnancy — go back into effect, making Arkansas the only state to restrict use of the abortion pills.
“The law that we were trying to get blocked went into effect immediately, and the immediate results were we had to turn away from the clinic people who were scheduled to take the pill,” Dr. Stephanie Ho, a physician at Planned Parenthood Great Plains in Fayetteville, Arkansas, told NBC News on Wednesday.
Attorneys for the three abortion clinics in the state — Planned Parenthood runs two, in Fayetteville and Little Rock, and Family Planning Services, also in Little Rock — asked a federal district court judge on Wednesday to block the law again. But in the meantime, women in Arkansas do not have access to the abortion pills.
Ho didn’t know how many appointments had been canceled, but she said the clinics were still trying on Wednesday to get in touch with women who had already scheduled appointments.
While Dr. Ho couldn’t give a number of the amount of cancellations, Planned Parenthood claims they are happening and it’s because the organization has been unable to find a doctor with admitting privileges to contract with.
Jerry Cox of the Family Council questioned Planned Parenthood's statement, “There are 6,000 doctors in Arkansas," Cox said. "I find it hard to believe in the whole state of Arkansas, not one doctor out of 6,000 doctors would contract."
Dr. Ho is upset with the appointment cancellations. "These are human beings who deserve control of their lives," Ho said.
The NBC report is unclear if Dr. Ho had any sense of irony when she said this.