No rehearing for Louisiana abortion law

NEW ORLEANS -- A divided federal appeals court has refused to reconsider a decision upholding Louisiana's law requiring that abortion providers have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, despite a dissenting judge's insistence that the decision is in "clear conflict" with a Supreme Court decision striking down a similar Texas law.

A three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled in September, in a 2-1 decision, that the Louisiana law did not impose the same burdens on women as the Texas law. On Friday, the court said the full court decided in a 9-6 vote against a rehearing.

Writing for the two-judge majority in September, Judge Jerry E. Smith had rejected arguments by opponents of the law that it would likely lead to the closure of one or more of the three clinics now providing abortions in Louisiana and lead to a loss of access to safe and legal abortion by 70 percent of the women seeking the procedure in Louisiana. The majority opinion then held that the law's opponents overstated the difficulty abortion doctors would have in obtaining admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, and the burden the law would put on women seeking abortions.

Friday's decision added nothing to Smith's earlier opinion, which overturned an earlier decision by Baton Rouge-based U.S. District Judge John deGravelles. But Judge James Dennis wrote a highly critical 20-page dissent.

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