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Abortionists in South Dakota Now Required to Admit Abortion Kills a "Whole, Separate, Unique, Living Human Being"

SIOUX FALLS, SD, July 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a 7-4 decision, will allow South Dakota to begin enforcing a state law that requires abortion providers to tell women, in writing, that the abortion procedure "will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, the Court vacated a temporary injunction that had been issued by the trial court, which had blocked the law from going into effect.

The opinion addresses the important issue of whether South Dakota can enforce its 2005 informed consent law while the constitutionality of its requirements is litigated in court. Much of the opinion discusses whether the statement, "abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being," is truthful, not misleading and relevant to women's decisions to obtain abortions. The majority found that Planned Parenthood had "submitted no evidence" that this statement was false, misleading, or irrelevant.

Planned Parenthood and abortion activists have tried to deny the fact that abortion kills a separate human being. Denial of this fact was part of a national strategy to create a culture of abortion for the entire nation, according to sworn testimony of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (NARAL). Today, a majority of the judges on the Eighth Circuit have clearly and decisively declared that South Dakota need not deny the truth.

Harold Cassidy, chief counsel for the two crisis pregnancy centers which intervened in the case, said: "Planned Parenthood, in a shocking, and perhaps perverse logic, argued that abortion doctors were harmed by being required to tell women the truth, and this supposed harm outweighed the damage to pregnant mothers who lost their children because of these doctors' failure to make material disclosures." The informed consent law is designed to guard against the negligence and misrepresentations by providers, since many women would not obtain abortions if properly informed.

The South Dakota law is designed to provide basic information necessary for a pregnant mother to make an informed decision before she gives up her fundamental rights. In the process, it allows her to apply her own personal, moral, and ethical values to the facts once they are disclosed. This fall, the people of South Dakota will vote on a statewide initiative that will ban abortion except in the case where the mother's life is threatened or in the rare case of rape or incest. This voter initiative will be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which sanctioned abortion through all nine months of pregnancy on January 22, 1973.

Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: "Planned Parenthood wants to practice evil while pretending it does not exist. Planned Parenthood is founded on a lie and it seeks to deceive women into thinking that abortion is good for them and that it does not involve a separate human being. When the truth about abortion is known, very few women will choose to kill their children."

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