Certified midwives, known for helping bring children into the families of Alaska, are now allowed to suction them into the fresh air for the express purpose of destroying them.
An Anchorage Superior Court judge has ruled that not only can doctors perform abortions in the state, licensed “advanced practice clinicians” can give out abortion-inducing pills and suction out living unborn children from mothers’ wombs. The decision is in advance of Garton’s decision in an underlying case brought in 2019 by Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky.
The trial took place in November, when Planned Parenthood argued that physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and certified nurse midwives are entitled to provide both medication and “aspiration” or suction abortion, even though it is “beyond the scope of their practice.”
The pro-abortion group says that the ban is the only law in Alaska that targets the type of care an advanced practice clinician can provide. The claim is not factual; there are many sideboards put on the care that advanced practitioners can perform.
Planned Parenthood asserts that the law violates Alaskans’ fundamental right to abortion and the state constitution’s equal protection guarantee. Alaska has one of the most lenient abortion standards in the country, allowing the practice all the way up to the moment of birth.
Judge Josie Garton said that the group is likely to succeed in its argument that the law curbing the practice of abortion to doctors only is unconstitutional. She also said that the clinicians have a right to perform abortions.
Alaska’s Supreme Court has long been pro-abortion, believing it is a privacy matter, and Garton has now signaled that her decision on the underlying case will also be pro-abortion.
Witnesses in the trial testified that that the law delays access to abortion without any medical benefit and causes unique harm to rural Alaskans and those “experiencing intimate partner violence.”
“Every person in Alaska deserves the freedom to seek abortion from trusted health care providers in their own community,” said Rebecca Gibron, CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky (PPGNHAIK) in November. “Allowing advanced practice clinicians to provide abortion will ensure that patients are able to better access the time-sensitive care they need. We are hopeful that this court will again rule in favor of reproductive freedom and permanently block this outdated and medically unnecessary restriction.”
