ST. PAUL, Minnesota, September 6, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit on Friday upheld the majority of South Dakota’s informed consent law, including a requirement that doctors inform pregnant women that they have “an existing relationship” with an “unborn human being.” A lower court ruling had struck down that provision because the judge concluded that preborn children are not “persons.”
Harold Cassidy, an attorney affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund, filed the appeal to the 8th Circuit on behalf of a group of pregnancy centers that successfully intervened in the suit to protect the interest of women.
The Family Research Council, CareNet, Heartbeat International, and the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates filed an amicus brief last year asking the court to reject Planned Parenthood’s attempt to block portions of the law.
ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden said the court was right to uphold informing women of “an undisputed biological fact.”
“A child’s life is worth more than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line,” said Aden. “Planned Parenthood and other proponents of death work diligently to restrict the information mothers have about abortion and the life within them.”
In 2005, the South Dakota Legislature passed House Bill 1166, which revised state law to require that women be given critical biological, relationship, and medical information before undergoing an abortion. Planned Parenthood, the operator of the state’s only abortion clinic, filed the suit Planned Parenthood v. Rounds to block implementation of the law. After the 8th Circuit lifted a lower court injunction against the law, it was returned to federal district court.
In August 2009, a district court judge ruled that portions of the law requiring doctors to inform women contemplating abortion that they are terminating a human life are constitutional, but she also ruled that other portions requiring doctors to tell women of their legally protected relationship with the preborn child and warning them of the documented risks of depression and suicide from abortion were unconstitutional.
The 8th Circuit reversed her decision concerning the “protected relationship” provision, and only narrowly upheld the judge’s decision with regard to the “risk of suicide” provision.
Arguing that the “risk of suicide” provision should have been upheld, Circuit Judge Raymond Gruender wrote in dissent that “even the evidence relied upon by Planned Parenthood acknowledges a significant, known statistical correlation between abortion and suicide. This well-documented statistical correlation is sufficient to support the required disclosure that abortion presents an ‘increased risk’ of suicide, as that term is used in the relevant medical literature.”
He noted that Planned Parenthood did not challenge the documented risks of depression.