the news has become this thing where you talk to experts about people, and al jazeera has really tried to talk to people, about their stories. we are not meant to be your first choice for entertainment. we are ment to be your first choice for the news. precedent, it's the "inside story." hello, i'm ray suarez.

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sponsoring account delay, she said we continue to look to the courts to uphold the constitution, and make sure that there's access to all women for abortion, regardless of where they live. but the advocates say that the intention is to protect women's health. the louisiana director for right to life says that the legal process is far from over. a lar legal fight is unfolding in texas. just last week, a federal judge

in texas also defended a part of that state abortion law. it contains a requirement for abortion clinics for ambulatory clinics. >> one of the first phonecalls i made canceled appointments, and called back in a panic and threatened suicide. and at that point, what do you say to people? >> if the texas law had gone into effect, the state would have had seven or eight clinics all in major cities. a federal judge ruled long travel times and other impediments that women faced would have been as drastic as a complete ban on abortion. the supreme court passed roe v. wade and since then, laws have

been passed about i 17 states restricting access to abortion. the future of legal abortion in states moving to limited restrictive procedure, at this time on the program, courts have stopped the laws from going into effect, most really louisiana. the arguments and strategies and future of abortion, joining u. the general relations of reproductive rights, and benjamin clapper of the louisiana right to life, and elizabeth nash for the good macher institute. benjamin, what was the impetus for this law, and what do you think that it accomplishes? >> what's interesting louisiana, every outpatient facility in our state if not an abortion facility, has to have privileges at hospitals to practice there.

we saw that abortion facilities had a loophole and they didn't have to have these privileges. we thought it was important for the health and safety of the women in our state to ensure that there's a continuity of care that continues from an abortion facility to when complications your. when they're protected and if it's legal, we need it make sure that the women get the highest standard of care in the state. >> is it occurring that women are having the kinds of troubles that are sending them to hospitals to continue their care? >> certainly complications do exist. and they will continue to happen. complications exist in all forms of out patient procedures, and we should make sure even if one complication occurs, we have the proper protections in place to make sure that women get the highest standard of care when they go to the hospital. the same thing that you or i should do, which is dial 9-1-1.

we don't believe that's good enough for louisiana and why we passed the law and hope that it goes fully into effect in the coming weeks. >> if it was true that a woman is brought to the hospital and should very not be treated there if the physician didn't have privileges? >> certainly she would be treated but the question is about it there would be a delay in care if the er physician had to assess whatever happened in the abortion facility. during the testimony, we have a physician who worked in the er, and oftentimes, he would have women, whether it was right after the abortion, or in the days that followed, they would have complications and come in, and he would say, why don't you go back to your physician to do the abortion? and she would say, i don't have a contact with him and i don't have a relationship with him. that's what we're trying to protect. abortion i was who get out the procedure in their mind, what

we want to make sure, that that physician can be the same person in the hospital assessing and delivering care in cases of complication. it's about leveling the standard, the playing field in our state, between other facilities and abortion facilities. >> so you are saying, but what you're not trying to do is trying to make it more difficult to get an abortion louisiana, and not trying to reduce the number of those procedures performed in your state, am i right? >> it has certainly been interesting, and no one seems to believe the pro-life cause here, and we actually do care about the health and safety of the woman. roe v. wade has prevented us from putting laws in the history books, and we need to make sure that a woman is protected from any complications that occur. an abortion facility should not have any protections that the rest don't have.

that's what we wanted to make did not happen louisiana. >> julian a. you heard benjamin clapper, who is one of the principles behind this case louisiana, telling you that the reason they're doing this, is to protect women. and do you take his statement at face value. >> well, ray, we are seeing laws in different states, and it's interesting that it's america's right to life that are the proponents of these laws, and these are not advanced by doctors or health groups, but by politicians who state that the purpose is to gain safe access to legal abortion, and not only are they advanced but the american college of gynecologists have gone on the record in lawsuits that we have filed louisiana and texas and mississippi, stating that the laws are not

only necessary, but they are harmful because they drive good, safe, legal abortion providers out of practice. >> why should a clinic performing some sort of procedure, have all of the equipment on hand that a surgical center would. would? these places are built with doorways, enough to turn around, why shouldn't they be equipped in the same manner? >> what we need to keep in mind, abortion is part of women's healthcare, and it should be regulated like other procedures. most abortions take place early in pregnancy, and they are not an invasive surgical procedures. far fewer than 1% of all abortions in the united states require further followup care, so this is a solution to a problem that does not exist.

and these are funded by states to limit access to abortion. we are seeing in the courts louisiana and texas and mississippi, the courts are pulling back the veil and showing what the fru motivation to the laws are. they are not there to promote women's health, but to prevent access. and when they do that, women suffer. >> meeting the privileges to stay in business, has that been keeping the clinics open? otherwise able to practice medicine in the state. >> it has been an impediments. many clinics in texas have closed. and we see one in mississippi that has only one abortion clinic, and the highly qualified physician there, they wouldn't consider his application, so it's not a question of whether he's qualified. he most certainly is.

but these hospitals won't even considering allowing doctors like dr. parker to have privileges, sometimes because they don't want to be associated with abortion and they want to eliminate the controversy. >> has this started a head-on assault on the legality of abortion has been tried for decades, and it hasn't worked. is there a way of restricting abortion, and made it harder to get an abortion, without passing a law? >> it is. and what we were seeing in the 80s and 90s were laws that made it more difficult for the woman. maybe she had to wait 24 howards, or maybe overinsurance wouldn't fund an abortion and she would have to come up with the fund herself. and what we are seeing is an assault of providers, and they shut down very good clinics by overregulating or requirements,

and we shut down clinics, and women can't get abortion, is so in a sense, you've eliminated access to abortion services without steps. >> we watch the numbers as closely at any other research organization in america, and the rate of abortions have climbed steadily over the past two decades, louisiana and texas as in the rest of the country. caare there in other reasons to american women resorting to termination less frequently? >> we have about 6 million pregnancies a year, and half or 3 million are unintended pregnancies and out of those unintended pregnancies, when half of those end in abortion. because we know that women need services, and we know that

women are increasingly having good access to contraceptive services. so there's a bit of a tull and tug to how it's shaping up. we know that those closed recently, the access is limited, and we see what happens when women don't have access to services. women are still having sex and becoming pregnant and they still need services in the eliminated. >> when away return to inside the reef, we'll look at the powers given to the states by supreme court decisions. thidecisions not been a static frozen part of our law. stay with us. >> on the stream, >> tuition assistance was a big incentive for high school grads to enter the military, but now that much of it's gone away, can the military compete? >> the stream, on al jazeera america

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>> you're absolutely right, that the state has been trying new ways to limit access within the confines of the constitutional standard that we have by using this facade, as we discussed earlier, of women's health. because they will be more

acceptable to the public, and even perhaps to the courts reviewing them, and now we're seeing the courts behind it realizing what's going on, and they are imposing an undo burden to reduce the constitutional standard for a women's right controversy. >> since roe, more than 40 years ago, that decision hasn't stood unstressed since that time. have there been other cases that have brought it? >> there have been many decisions since that time that have altered the landscape, and even the 1991 decision gave the state the ability to make the decisions to protect the health and welfare of its citizens, and we have to remember that it's not as if one morning the louisiana week up and decided

to pass this legislation. it was authored by a woman legislature, and upheld in the circuit court of appeals by three female judges and this is something that has been upheld and supported by women for the health of women in our state. and it's not something that has been isolated to a few people and organizations. the 5th circuit court of peals, an all-female panel, said it's about the continuity of care, and that's a decision that people want to forget about that was made as repeat as april. that is the standard of a decision right now in the 5th circuit on the texas law, and that's a very important decision, and we can't forget that. >> i understand your appoint about the continuity of care, and the reason you put forth to make these clinics more capable of handling a wider range of complications, but earlier in the program, juliana said this is a solution in search of a

problem, and can you see that in fact, there are very few of the kind of complications that you suggest that these clinics have to be prepared to handle? >> sure, when other outpatient facilities in the state of louisiana years ago were told that the physicians had to have privileges at local opts, was it because of some drastic public health issue with amazing complicationed? no, it was because the state of louisiana saw that the complications existed and they needed to put these protections in case. why should -- >> we lost our satellite connection with louisiana, and we'll attempt to reestablish that. elizabeth nash, what has been the national landscape? have there been states that have gone pretty far down the road making if hard inside of the state lines to get an abortion? >> absolutely, we can look at places like texas, but we can

go much further, north dakota, south dakota, nebraska, kansas, arizona, oklahoma, mississippi, louisiana, all of these states have made it incredibly difficult for women to access services in just the last few years. >> how do they do that westbound the language of roe? >> they have taken it very lossly and adopted restrictions, such as a 24-hour waiting period. and then they make a trip to the councilor, and then a trip 24 hours later to receive the abortion, and they limit how she can pay for the abortion, and pile on the restrictions one after another such that at one point, it gets too high for the women to climb and too high for the providers to offer services, so they don't overturn roe at all, but keep

adding more and more restrictions, even when an individual restriction is upheld, you put them all together, and it becomes a very difficult mountain for a woman to climb. >> does it boil down to geography? very large population innings the dakotas and nebraska, and once you take a couple of clinics out of the mix, it may mean driving what, 500 miles? >> arizona is a very good example. we lost about a dozen clinics in arizona. you can only access abortion in urban centers. and rural women have a very difficult time accessing services, and so do working women. they have to take time off of work, 60% of women have to arrange for travel, and all of this on top of the cost of the abortion is felt. it's expensive and takes time.

and some have to take weeks to come one it. >> benjamin, is there an impact that the one that you might get passed louisiana may have, more heavily on women less mobile or have less money to travel to another stateora another part of a large state? >> certainly, that's a concern that can be brought up, and we want to make sure that in all parts of our state, we can't say that unsafe abortions are here, and safe abortions are here. we don't create different standards of scare, depending care depending on where people are. we don't say that in this part of the state, we should have certain forms of care, and other parts of the state, we should have lower forms of care. that's not how the state operates. it's the best thing to protect

the health of our citizens, and it passes legislation to that end. this legislation was voted on by an overwhelming number of louisiana legislators, females, males, democrats, republicans, and the people of louisiana see there's a concern here, and our state has the ability. and we have the responsibility to protect the health and we welfare of our citizens. that's why this was passed. it's not two sets of star standards. >> we have to take one more short break in today's program. and when we come back, we'll continue our conversation in the battle of the courts over the right to seek an abortion, and how the laws vary from state to state. this is "inside story." stay with us.

>> welcome back, i'm ray suarez. the legal front lines and the continuing battles over access to abortion this time on the program. and still with us, juliana gorman, government relations for the center

for reproductive rights, benjamin clapper, and lugs betting nash, and elizabeth, i'm wondering to a degree if intelligence not taken over by events, the debate of clinics, because more and more women are terminating their pregnancies using prescription drugs. >> to some degree. we have a medication abortion, which allows women to end their pregnancy early in pregnancy, and it's very safe and fda approved and that in some ways could help us access services in rural areas, because we could use telemedicine for women to end pregnancies there. but i wanted to talk about safety. we know that abortion is incredibly safe in this country, and we also know that all of the evidence that the courts have been reviewing

recently, they have found that there's a marginal difference if there are admitting privileges or not. and they're saying that there's really no difference if the state has bridges in the type of care that women receive in abortion, and clinics have emergency protocols in place. they want to protect the health of their patients, and they have put together emergency protocols, so in the rare case that it requires hospitalization, women get the care they need. >> benjamin nash, the idea that more women will end their pregnancies another home with a book of instructions and some pills. >> well, the form of abortion that i believe she's referring to, the law requires that that be done in a facility. and that's a significant procedure, though it's a medication abortion, a doctor needs to be there on-site and our law protects that.

we have to remember that abortion facilities are selling abortion at $450 per abortion, and often more than that. they have a financial interest at stake in selling abortions to the women of louisiana and our nation. the state of louisiana, we don't have any interest? what's happening here. our goal is to make sure that the playing field is equal, and the standard of care is increased and we can protect the health and safety of women in organizations that want to sell abortion rather than those who want to sell it. >> juliana. >> i'm surprised to say but i agree with benjamin. we do agree that the playing field should be equal. and that's why we challenge the laws that single out abortions that don't apply to medical procedures with similar risk. this is what we're seeing in state after state. and it's interesting that you bring up medication abortion which is a great advance on how

they want to end a pregnancy, but this is not eluded the proponents of abortion, who have targeted medication abortion. they require that doctors use a protocol that's years old. and it makes it effectively unavailable. so again, the regulatory process is being hijack for an ideological agenda, and these are not being prommed by physicians or groups but those who want to end access to safe and legal abortion, which will harm women. >> juliana and elizabeth and 2010 minute, thank you for joining us, and that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." thank you for being with us, and the program may be over, but the conversation continues. if you want to hear about anything on today's show or any show, log onto us at twitter, ray soares news. from washington, i'm ray soares, see you.

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