Is it constitutional for a state to require a doctor to tell an expectant mother what medical studies consistently show: that an abortion could profoundly and permanently impact her physical, mental, and emotional health?
No, says one federal judge in South Dakota, urged on by Planned Parenthood. Yes, say a number of family-friendly groups, including CareNet, Heartbeat International, The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, the Family Research Council …and the Alliance Defense Fund.
So, on behalf of all these organizations, ADF attorneys recently filed a
friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit asking the court to reject the judge’s reasoning in the lawsuit,
Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, since that ruling would block portions of South Dakota’s informed consent law. The ADF brief supports an appeal filed by ADF-allied attorney Harold Cassidy on behalf of several pregnancy centers that back the consent law.
That law, which the state Legislature passed in 2005, requires doctors to give mothers the critical biological, relationship, and medical information they need to make informed decisions before they undergo an abortion. Planned Parenthood – which, as the operator of South Dakota’s only abortion clinic, has a compelling financial interest in keeping this information from mothers – quickly filed suit to block the law. A trial court filed an injunction to do just that, the appeals court countermanded that injunction, and the case then made its way back to the trial court.
After hearing arguments, the trial judge in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Karen Schreier, rejected the idea that a child in the womb is “an unborn human being,” saying lives in the womb are not “persons.” Then, in a one-judge “split decision,” she
ruled that the consent law was within constitutional bounds in requiring doctors to inform women that abortion terminates a human life … but went out of bounds by requiring doctors to tell those same women that, by aborting their children, they were risking depression and even suicide.
In other words, it’s okay to tell a woman that having an abortion will kill the child, but it’s not okay to tell her that abortion hurts mothers, too.
The ADF brief asks the court to reverse the judge, arguing that Planned Parenthood has no legal right to bring its lawsuit because it actively works to keep the truth about abortion from mothers – including the depths of the emotional bond each one shares with the “person” in their womb.
“A child’s life is worth more than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden. “The proponents of death work diligently to restrict the information mothers have about the life within them. Women need to know all the facts about abortion because it’s not a one-time event; women have testified, and research shows, that aborting a child is an ongoing, painful struggle with guilt and doubt.”
Please be in prayer for ADF as we defend not just the lives of preborn children, but the right of countless mothers to know the risk this fateful and eternal decision poses to themselves.