Louisiana says abortion clinic is hiding criminal evidence

November 26, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Baton Rouge, La., Nov 26, 2019 / 04:19 pm (CNA).- The Louisiana Department of Justice is asking an appeals court to unseal documents from abortion provider June Medical Services (Hope Medical Group) in order to report evidence of criminal and professional misconduct against a staff member of the group that the department says was hidden from the Supreme Court.

Attorneys for the Louisiana Department of Justice filed the writ of mandamus with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Nov. 18, according to the department’s website. The staff member in question worked at a Shreveport abortion clinic.

Hope Medical Group filed three lawsuits against abortion restriction laws in Louisiana, including a pending suit before the Supreme Court challenging a law requiring abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic.

“I am deeply concerned about the basic health and safety of Louisiana women. And Hope’s continued efforts to hide this information from the Supreme Court and to block reporting to proper authorities casts serious doubt on Hope and its abortion providers’ claims that it represents the interests of Louisiana women,” Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill said in a statement on the state’s DOJ website.

“As DOJ officers, if we learn of potentially criminal activity during litigation, we have a legal obligation to report it to criminal investigators and licensing authorities. We also have a basic legal duty to protect the public from dangerous behavior when we learn of it. Shockingly, Hope Medical Group is refusing to unseal this evidence and permit us to carry out our legal duties,” Murrill added.

The Louisiana DOJ added in the statement that ordinarily, the evidence they uncovered against the staff member would have resulted in a criminal referral, but that referral has thus far been impeded by the sealing of documents by a federal judge in the case.

The law being challenged at the Supreme Court by Hope Medical Group in Gee v. June Medical Services, LLC is Louisiana’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act.

When then-Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) signed the bill into law in 2014, it was promptly challenged in court by pro-choice groups and activists. Texas had passed similar regulations in the name of protecting women’s health, but the Texas law was eventually struck down in the Supreme Court’s 2016 Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt decision.

In Hellerstedt, the court ruled that the Texas law created an “undue burden” on abortion access in the state, as it had decided in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that state abortion laws could not pose such an obstacle.

The court said in 2016 that for Texas abortion clinics, such a “working arrangement” was already in place with hospitals in the state, and that the provision forced the closure of around half the clinics in the state.

After Hellerstedt, a district court barred the Louisiana law from going into effect.

That decision was reversed by the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court in June Medical Services, L.L.C. v. Gee, which ruled that the Louisiana case sufficiently differed from the Texas case so that the Supreme Court decision was not applicable on a like-for-like basis. The court in January denied a motion for a rehearing of the case.

The Circuit Court noted in its decision that the Louisiana law varied from the Texas law because of differing requirements between the states for doctors to obtain hospital admitting privileges.

“Few Louisiana hospitals” required a doctor to see a minimum number of patients in order to have admitting privileges, unlike in Texas where “almost all” hospitals had such requirements, the court said. While most clinics in Texas closed because of its law, “only one doctor at one clinic is currently unable to obtain privileges” in Louisiana, the court noted, though this claim has been disputed by Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice groups.

In February, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked Louisiana’s law from going into effect, after a petition from abortion providers and activists. The Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case in early 2020.

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News Briefs

The cycle of porn and loneliness

July 11, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Richmond, Va., Jul 11, 2018 / 05:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Andy*, a devout Catholic and recently married man in his twenties, encountered a vicious cycle of pornography in high school and some college – a cycle of porn and loneliness.  

“[Porn] would create this whole loneliness, but then, [because of] that loneliness itself, I was seeking for some sort of connection and I was seeking that through the use of pornography, like this reciprocating cycle,” he told CNA.

Starting sophomore year of high school and ending sometime in college, Andy’s porn use would also make him feel shame about interacting with people. It would lead him to be more anti-social, then to loneliness, and ultimately to more porn use. He said it was real, human connection which broke that cycle.

“I found that one of the things that actually helped me break that cycle was actually more interaction with people that were really good friends and people that were there for me.”

Andy’s experience is not uncommon, according to a recent study from the Institute of Family Studies.

IFS linked greater porn use to increased loneliness and higher levels of loneliness to more porn use, pointing to a vicious and unhealthy cycle. One of the men behind the study, Mark Butler, wrote an article describing the research.

“If loneliness can lead to pornography use, and pornography use may bring about or intensify loneliness, these circular linkages may create a vicious cycle, pulling the user even further from health-promoting relationship connections,” he wrote July 3.

The study surveyed more than 1,000 people from around the world, and a statistical model was developed to analyze the potential reasons behind this cycle of loneliness and porn use.

Butler wrote that “each incremental increase in loneliness was associated with an increase in pornography use (by a factor of 0.16), and each incremental increase in pornography use predicted a significant increase in loneliness (by a factor of 0.20).”

“While the magnitude of effects was small, they were statistically significant,” Butler wrote. “Interlocking partnerships like this are worrisome since they represent an entrapment template associated with addiction.”

The model highlights the biological experience and results of the sexual system that ought to produce greater relational connection through pleasure and comfort.

“First, there’s the physical pleasure of arousal, intercourse, and climax – the engine designed to ensure offspring. Then, after climax, partners experience the brain’s ‘love’ plan for pair bonding, when oxytocin … is released, producing feelings of comfort, connection, and closeness.”

However, without a partner with whom to bond, the sexual activity produces a false relationship experience, “offering temporary ‘relief’ from lonely feeling, but soon enough, the user again faces a real-world relationship void,” he said.  

The mental fantasy of a relationship experience invited by pornography “only tricks the brain for a while,” Butler said.

“The user can’t escape the fact that when the experience is over, they’re still alone in an empty room. So, when sexual intoxication wears off, the experience may only end up excavating a deeper emptiness – a setup for a vicious cycle.”

The temporary escape from the long term loneliness creates a false-belief that porn is a “fix” for loneliness, he said, noting that it is similar to drug addictions.  

“The sexual system’s combination of two very different rewards – intense sensual gratification during arousal and climax, followed by oxytocin’s relief and comfort during the resolution period – could be thought of like a combined cocaine-valium experience and ‘hook.’”

“We hypothesize that this experience could create the potential for getting trapped in the short-term, feel-good escape of pornography joined with long-term loneliness.”

Butler also pointed to other studies that show a decrease in porn use after marriage, suggesting that human connection contrasts with this vicious cycle.

“Married persons use pornography less than single persons. The fact that pornography use decreases after marriage may hint at a link between pornography, relational success, and loneliness.”

 

*Name changed to respect privacy

[…]

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