A federal appeals court ruled Friday that South Dakota may require doctors to tell a woman seeking an abortion that she has a legal relationship with her unborn child. But the court also ruled against the state’s requirement that doctors tell women that abortion raises the risk of suicide.
Both sides in the abortion debate immediately claimed victory. "We are thrilled beyond words," said Leslee Unruh, founder of the Alpha Center pregnancy counseling center in Sioux Falls.
“We are so happy about this ruling. It just shows the tide has turned in this country and we need to protect unborn children, as well as the woman in making that decision."
On the abortion-rights side, Planned Parenthood said the informed consent law had wrongly required doctors to pass along medically inaccurate information.
“As the major medical organizations have found, and as the court agreed today, the scientific and medical evidence shows that women who choose abortion are not at increased risk for mental health problems,” said Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota. “This law is just one of many reprehensible barriers that South Dakota lawmakers have attempted to place between women and their access to safe, legal, reproductive health care.”
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling overturns part of a 2009 ruling by U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier. In August 2009, Schreier ruled that doctors must make the biological disclosure "that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." The appeals court agreed, but said Schreier was incorrect in saying it was unconstitutional for doctors to be required to tell women they have a relationship with the fetus.
The case is one of many playing out in the states. On Tuesday a federal judge temporarily blocked a Texas law forcing women to get a sonogram and listen to the heartbeat of the fetus before an abortion.
On August 1 a federal judge blocked a Kansas law that aimed to keep federal funds from Planned Parenthood, a victory in one of several battles the women’s health provider is fighting in conservative states.
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