Case 2:22-cv-00223-Z Document 137 Filed 04/07/23 Page 10 of 67 PageID 4432
Pa. Psychiatric, 280 F.3d at 290 (“[A] party need not face insurmountable hurdles to warrant third-party standing.”). The injuries suffered by patients of the Plaintiff medical associations’ members are sufficient to confer associational standing.
Here, the physician-patient dynamic favors third-party standing. Unlike abortionists suing on behalf of women seeking abortions, here there are no potential conflicts of interest between the Plaintiff physicians and their patients. See June Med. Servs. L.L.C. v. Russo, 140 S. Ct. 2103, 2167 (2020) (Alito, J., dissenting), abrogated by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228 (2022) (abortionists have a “financial interest in avoiding burdensome regulations,” while women seeking abortions “have an interest in the preservation of regulations that protect their health”). And the case for a close physician-patient relationship is even stronger here than in the abortion context. See id. at 2168 (“[A] woman who obtains an abortion typically does not develop a close relationship with the doctor who performs the procedure. On the contrary, their relationship is generally brief and very limited.”); see also ECF No. 1-9 at 7 (“[I]n many cases there is no doctor-patient relationship [between a woman and an abortionist], so [women] often present to overwhelmed emergency rooms in their distress, where they are usually cared for by physicians other than the abortion prescriber.”); ECF No. 1-11 at 4 (because there “is no follow-up or additional care provided to patients” by abortionists, there is “no established relationship with a physician” and “patients are simply left to report to the emergency room”). Plaintiff physicians often spend several hours treating post-abortive women, even hospitalizing them overnight or providing treatment throughout several visits. See ECF No. 1-8 at 5–6. Given the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on the close relationship between abortionists and women, the facts of this case indicate that Plaintiffs’ relationships with their patients are at least as close — if not closer — for purposes of third-party standing.
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