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By Jeff Johnson
Women considering an abortion in South Dakota will receive more complete information about how the procedure will affect their bodies and what will actually happen to their unborn child thanks to a ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
South Dakota passed a law in 2005 requiring abortionists to inform women that the procedure ends the life of a living human being, and that they could suffer physical harm from the procedure as well. Jordan Lorence, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), says Planned Parenthood immediately sued to block implementation of the law. "They don't want to tell women all the facts because, if women decide not to get abortions based on that total package of information, Planned Parenthood wouldn't get money," Lorence explains. "The doctors, therefore, have a conflict of interest."
A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit initially blocked the law from going into effect, but the full court recently ruled 8-7 that states can require doctors to provide "truthful, non-misleading" information to women who are considering an abortion -- even if that information may encourage them to choose to let the child live. "The 8th Circuit realized that there's nothing unconstitutional about this," the ADF attorney comments. "This is not harming women in any way; in fact, it's helping them by giving them more information about abortion." And that all adds up, he says, to good news for those waging the battle on behalf of the unborn. "[T]here's somewhat of a change -- a thaw, I would suggest -- in the way that the courts are viewing governmental restrictions and regulation of abortion. That's a good thing," notes the attorney. "And they are not just striking down all these laws and leaving Planned Parenthood and the other abortionists virtually unregulated, as they have in the past."
In addition to protecting the health of women and the lives of unborn children, Lorence says another positive change could result from the ruling. "Other state legislatures will probably be more inclined -- especially other states in the Midwest that are [under the jurisdiction of] the same circuit court -- to pass these kinds of informed consent laws," he shares. Lorence believes the more information about abortion that is available to women, the fewer women will choose abortion.
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