Public Hospitals Can’t Opt Out of Providing Abortions, Washington State Judge Rules

Public hospitals that offer maternity services must also must provide abortions on-site, a Washington state judge ruled Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

According to the AP, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington sued Skagit Regional Health and Skagit Valley Hospital last year because the hospital refers patients seeking to terminate their pregnancies to Planned Parenthood.

The ACLU argued that the state’s Reproductive Privacy Act requires public hospitals that provide maternity care to provide “substantially equivalent” abortion services on-site. Lawyers for the hospital argued that it was willing to perform abortions, but it doesn’t currently have staff members willing to do so.

Demonstrators on both sides of the abortion issue stand in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Skagit County Superior Court Judge Raquel Montoya-Lewis ruled that the hospital may not opt out of providing abortions.

“The key distinction here is that individual providers may choose either to provide or not provide these services, but the state, acting here through the Hospital District, cannot exercise such an opt-out clause,” Montoya-Lewis wrote. “The Hospital District must comply with its responsibility under the [Reproductive Privacy Act], and the Court sees no tenable reason why it cannot.”

According to the AP, Washington state law allows health care providers to opt out of providing abortions, but the judge ruled that while individuals may opt out, hospitals may not.

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