Prolife Activities
Guste, like many Louisiana Democrats in the 1980s, pleased conservatives by taking a pro-life position on abortion. In 1989, in his last term in office, he filed an amicus curiae brief in the Webster v. Reproductive Health Services. The Supreme Court in this case reversed an appeals court decision that required public hospitals to offer abortion services. The case stemmed from Missouri, which has such facilities in St. Louis and Kansas City, but had the appeals ruling stood, it would have applied in the other 49 states as well. The "Webster" in the case was Missouri's Republican Attorney General William Webster. Abortion rights groups around the country rallied on behalf of the defendant. The result is that state hospitals need not provide elective abortions except in cases of impregnation by rape, incest, or in situations where the medical personnel cannot save the lives of both the woman and the child.
Read more about this topic: William J. Guste
Famous quotes containing the word activities:
“If it is to be done well, child-rearing requires, more than most activities of life, a good deal of decentering from one’s own needs and perspectives. Such decentering is relatively easy when a society is stable and when there is an extended, supportive structure that the parent can depend upon.”
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