|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3890
|
|
|
|
|
|
VETOES
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
current Maryland laws regulating abortions is enclosed
for your information. As we noted at page 4 of that
opinion, the Supreme Court held in Doe v. Bolton that
"The hospital requirement of the Georgia law, because it
fails to exclude the first trimester of pregnancy...is
also invalid." While the current Maryland law, like the
Georgia law, does not exclude the first trimester, the
requirement of House Bill 1065 that all abortions
performed after the twentieth week of pregnancy may be
performed only in a hospital does, of course, exclude the
first trimester and, thus, does not fall squarely within
the holding in Doe v. Bolton. He would be remiss,
however, if we did not point out that the Supreme Court
also discussed in its opinion in Doe v. Bolton the
possibility that Georgia might constitutionally "adopt
standards for licensing all facilities where abortions
may be performed [after the end of the first trimester]
so long as its standards are legitimately related to the
objective the State seeks to accomplish"; 410 U.S. at
195. The Court went on to refer to the mass of data
introduced by those challenging the Georgia law,
purporting to demonstrate that certain facilities other
than hospitals are entirely adequate to perform abortions
if they possess certain basic staffing and service
qualifications. The Court pointedly observed that:
"The State, on the other hand, has not
presented persuasive data to show that only
hospitals meet its acknowledged interest in insuring
the quality of the operation and the full protection
of the patient. We feel compelled to agree with
appellants that the State must show more than it has
in order to prove that only the full resources of a
licensed hospital, rather than those of some other
appropriately licensed institution, satisfy these
health interests." Id.
Should the "hospital only" requirement of House Bill 1065
be challenged in court, we cannot state with certainty
that the State would be able to present the type of
persuasive data which Georgia was not able to present
sufficient to justify this requirement beyond the
twentieth week of pregnancy. We should also add that
House Bill 1065's "hospital only" requirement does not
come into play until after the twentieth week of
pregnancy, a point in time somewhat later than the end of
the first trimester. For purposes of our review of this
legislation, however, we must assume that such data would
be forthcoming and that the "hospital only" requirement
is constitutionally defensible. We are certainly in no
position to conduct the kind of factual inquiry called
for as a part of our present review of House Bill 1065.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The second sentence of subsection (a) provides that
the medical record of any patient upon whom an abortion
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
