War on Women on Verge of Major Victory in Kentucky Court

Had to be Mississippi, right?  The first state to lose its last and only abortion clinic?  Or Kansas, where the freakazoids murdered Dr. George Tiller.  Oklahoma or Idaho or Alabama.  One of those deep-red, backward, shitty states full of slope-headed, mouth-breathing morons who can't abide women having control over their own bodies.

Not Kentucky.

Bruce Schreiner of the AP:

Its survival on the line, Kentucky's last abortion clinic is bracing for a pivotal legal showdown with health regulators and the state's anti-abortion governor that could determine whether Kentucky becomes the first state in the nation without an abortion clinic.

The licensing fight, set to play out in a Louisville federal courtroom starting Wednesday, revolves around a state law requiring that EMW Women's Surgical Center have agreements with a hospital and an ambulance service in the event of medical emergencies involving patients.

State regulators defend those conditions as "important safeguards" to protect women's health. The clinic in downtown Louisville counters that the requirements lack any "medical justification" and amount to an unconstitutional barrier to abortion.

But the case's significance goes beyond a debate about state law.

"The stakes in this case couldn't be higher: the very right to access legal abortion in the state of Kentucky is on the line," said Dr. Ernest Marshall, who opened the clinic in the early 1980s.

SNIP

The lawsuit is one of two pitting the clinic against the state. The other lawsuit is challenging a new Kentucky law requiring doctors to conduct an ultrasound exam before an abortion, then try to show fetal images to the pregnant woman. The law says she can avert her eyes.

EMW gained an ally in its licensing fight when Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky was allowed to join EMW's lawsuit. Planned Parenthood argues that Bevin's administration has used the transfer agreements to block its requests for a license to provide abortions in Louisville.

EMW's legal team believes the case "falls squarely" within a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down Texas regulations that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and forced clinics to meet certain standards for outpatient surgery. The Supreme Court has found that access to an abortion must be guaranteed, but it remains to be seen whether eliminating every clinic in a single state would pass that test.

"Will we build on the momentum of last year's Supreme Court decision upholding abortion rights?" Marshall said. "Or will Kentucky be the harbinger of a future where the right to abortion only exists if you live in the right zip code?"

Read the whole infuriating thing.