Update: Drs. Lamar Robinson and Jasbir Ahluwalia have reached a settlement [PDF] with University General Hospital Dallas. The hospital has restored their admitting privileges, which enables them to keep providing abortions by complying with Texas' new abortion restrictions.
Original Story (April, 17, 2014): Two Texas doctors that offer abortions are challenging a hospital for revoking their admitting privileges.
Read the petition here.
In a letter, University General Hospital Dallas says granting admitting privileges to doctors who perform abortions would be disruptive to the hospital’s reputation.
Both doctors, Lamar Robinson and Jasbir Ahluwalia, were also part of the first legal challenge to new Texas abortion law. They say they applied for admitting privileges because of the law, which requires abortion doctors to receive admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of the clinic to legally perform abortions in Texas. They received them in late 2013 and earlier this year, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
But a few weeks ago, the hospital sent them nearly identical letters explaining that the hospital had been unaware that they perform "voluntary interruption of pregnancies" as part of their medical practice. University General Hospital Dallas says it considers performing this procedure "disruptive to the business and reputation of UGHD."
Texas law prohibits hospitals from discriminating against doctors because they provide abortions.
At least two other separate legal challenges to the law are moving through the courts.
