TRAP: “Exceedingly Weak”
Center for Reproductive Rights President and CEO Nancy Northup appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show this week to discuss extremist politicians’ ongoing efforts to aggressively push Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers or TRAP laws.
The measures are touted as efforts to make abortion services safer, but they actually are threatening to shut down a number of reproductive health clinics in many parts of the country, particularly in the South.
Just this week, a federal court struck down the Alabama legislature’s attempt to enforce a kind of TRAP law that requires doctors who provide abortion services to obtain admitting privileges from local hospitals in the event of complications with a patient.
The judge in the case said the state’s reasoning for such a law—that it would improve the quality of care for women having abortions—was “exceedingly weak.”
Nancy called the ruling a “huge win” as the court called out the “underhanded tactics” that extremist politicians continue to use to try and prevent women from accessing abortion services.
Major medical groups, including the American Medical Association, have come out in opposition to these laws because they do not serve any medical purpose.
Admitting privileges are often business arrangements with hospitals and hospitals sometimes require doctors to meet quotas. Abortion providers already have plans in place to deal with an emergency. And medical experts confirm that abortion care has a 99% safety record, with less than 1% of patients experiencing any complications and even fewer requiring further treatment at a hospital.
Watch Nancy on Maddow: