State defends law on abortion doctors’ hospital privileges

NEW ORLEANS—Lawyers for the state of Louisiana asked a federal appeals court Thursday to uphold a law requiring that doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

The arguments involve a law blocked by a federal judge in Baton Rouge last year after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar Texas law.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles was wrong when he ruled against the law in April 2017, argued Elizabeth Murill of the state attorney general's office.

"He exaggerated the burden. He minimized the benefits," Murill told a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

DeGravelles ruled months after the Supreme Court struck down Texas' rules, widely replicated by other anti-abortion states, requiring hospital admitting privileges for abortion doctors and requiring abortion clinics to meet hospital-like standards.

The clinic standards were not at issue in the Louisiana case argued on Thursday. And Murill argued that, in Louisiana, abortion rights advocates failed to make the case that requiring admission privileges would put impermissible obstacles in the way of women seeking abortions in the state.

Court records indicate there are three abortion clinics currently operating in the state, with a handful of doctors performing the procedures, in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. The law's opponents said it likely would result in one doctor at one clinic in New Orleans providing abortion care, a contention the state disputes.