Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
A federal district judge used an extensive gun rights analogy Monday to justify why Alabama can't enforce its new anti-abortion law.
The argument came in a 172-page ruling that rejected the state's requirement for doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges in area hospitals to remain in business. According to Reuters, the 2013 Alabama law had "threatened to close three of the state's five abortion clinics," which used transient doctors who could not secure these privileges.
U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama held that Alabama's regulations were an unconstitutional burden on a woman's choice, and used gun politics to make his point.
"In deciding this case, the court was struck by a parallel in some respects between the right of women to decide to terminate a pregnancy and the right of the individual to keep and bear firearms, including handguns in her home for the purposes of self-defense," wrote Thompson, a 1980 President Carter appointment to the bench.
Thompson went on to compare the Supreme Court's landmark 2010 McDonald v City of Chicago case, which helped determine whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states, as a reference for his decision.