BATON ROUGE, LA - Today, the Supreme Court of the United States
announced that it will take up Louisiana’s admitting privilege law, which is
designed to protect women. As the main defender of Louisiana’s pro-life and
pro-woman laws - Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry issued the following
statement:
“In 2014, our duly elected legislators overwhelmingly
passed Act 620 to require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting
privileges at nearby hospitals. Today, the United States Supreme Court has
agreed to consider our case; and we remain hopeful the Justices
will affirm the Fifth Circuit’s decision, as we firmly believe that
the facts in our case show Act 620 is constitutional and consistent with our
overall regulatory scheme for surgical procedures.
In addition to agreeing to consider the merits of
Louisiana’s admitting privileges law, we are pleased the Court has also agreed
to take up Louisiana’s challenge to the third-party standing of abortion
providers to bring these types of challenges in the first place. The evidence
of Louisiana abortion clinics’ poor safety records, inadequate credentialing
practices, and questionable efforts to undermine health and safety
regulations shows that the abortion clinics’ interests are directly
adverse to the interests of Louisiana women. Incompetent and unsafe
providers should not be allowed to challenge health and safety standards
designed to protect women from those very providers.
Going forward, my office and I will be carefully
reviewing the next steps in our defense of Louisiana's admitting privileges
law. We will not waver in defense of our State's pro-woman and pro-life laws;
and we will continue to do all we legally can to protect Louisiana women.”