A federal appeals court affirmed the last provision of a long disputed
informed consent law today, ruling that the state of South Dakota is allowed to
require abortionists to inform women seeking to terminate the lives of their
unborn they would be at “increased risk” for suicide.
“Today’s decision of the en banc Court of the United States Court of Appeals
(8th Circuit) is a fabulous victory for the women of the state of South Dakota.
The court ruled that the women will now be given additional important
information before they consent to an abortion: that the abortion places a woman
at increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide,” said Harold J. Cassidy, an
attorney.
He represents Leslee Unruh, president of the Alpha Center of Sioux Falls, and Stacy
Wollman, president of Care Net of Rapid City. They were allowed to intervene in
the case filed by Planned Parenthood against the state’s new law.
“This victory represents the fourth separate decision of the 8th Circuit
reversing the district court in this one case, two decisions issued by en banc
courts four years apart – a rare occurrence that underscores the importance of
the issues presented by the case,” said Cassidy.
“As a result of this case upholding all eight major provisions of South
Dakota’s Abortion Informed Consent Statute, pregnant mothers will now be
informed: (1) that ‘an abortion terminates the life of a whole, separate,
unique, living human being;’ (2) that the mother’s ‘relationship with that
second human being enjoys protection under the Constitution of the United States
and the laws of South Dakota;’ (3) ‘that relationship and all rights attached to
it will be terminated;’ and (4) the abortion places the mother ‘at increased
risk for suicide ideation and suicide,’” he said.
The court’s
opinion said even Planned Parenthood’s own testimony documented a link
between abortion and suicide.
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“Planned Parenthood’s own expert, Dr. Nada Stotland, admitted that one of the
studies, which determined a suicide rate after abortion of 31.9 per 100,000 as
compared to a suicide rate after live birth of 5.0 per 100,000, ‘indicates an
association; not causation, but an association’ between abortion and suicide,”
the judges wrote.
Added Steven H. Aden, of the Alliance Defending
Freedom, on the decision: “A woman’s right to make a fully informed choice
is more important than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line. If Planned Parenthood
truly cared about the well-being of women, it would not try to prevent them from
being informed of the well-documented risk of suicide that accompanies abortion.
The 8th Circuit has done the right thing in upholding a reasonable law that
protects the well-being of women by making sure that the truth is not hidden
from them.”
Leslee Unruh, chief of the Sioux Falls Alpha Center, said the ruling “gives
hope to the hopeless. These are women who had abortions who were coerced,
persecuted, broken. These women did a very courageous thing in going to the
South Dakota legislature and telling their stories.”
“These judges have believed them, listened to their hearts and have ruled on
their behalf,” she said.
The lawsuit was brought by Planned Parenthood against the state after the
legislature in 2005 adopted the new informed consent requirements for
abortionists.
Cassidy noted that normally a statement of the importance of the decision
would suffice.
“However, we feel that, in this instance, given the fact that South Dakota’s
Informed Consent Statute, passed to protect the interests of pregnant mothers in
South Dakota, was the subject of false claims and protracted litigation that
took seven years to conclude, and required the intervenors to win four different
appeals in the Eighth Circuit, requires further comment,” he said.
“Throughout the legislative processes, over the past eight years, and all
during the pending of this litigation, as well as that of the new case now
pending in the District Court (in which Alpha Center and Care Net are party
intervenors), Planned Parenthood has threatened expensive litigation and counsel
fees. Planned Parenthood has argued that they should be free to perform their
radical abortion practices the way its New York City office prefers and that the
people of the state of South Dakota should not impose regulations that reflect
the values of the people of the state; and the people should not protect the
interests of their pregnant mothers.
“Planned Parenthood has been proven completely wrong on every issue in the
case. The state statute is a constitutionally valid method to protect pregnant
mothers,” he said.
“The people of the State of South Dakota have stood up to the threats, false
accusations and litigation tactics of Planned Parenthood. In the process, the
people of South Dakota have shown that they will not be intimidated by threats
of litigation, threats of payment of attorneys’ fees, and will hold fast to
their conviction that a handful of people in New York, with a radical
philosophy, will not dictate to the people of South Dakota, when, if, and how
they will protect their women from harm, pressure, coercion and false and
incomplete information when making the most important decision of their lives,”
he said.
His reference to another case involves a second new law adopted in South
Dakota that now is subject to a second challenge by Planned Parenthood. That law
requires that a physician have a personal interview with a women seeking
abortion, and that she be offered counseling by state-approved counseling
centers, before the abortionist can schedule the procedure.
In South Dakota, where Planned Parenthood flies abortionists in to a facility
where they perform abortions and then leave the state, it would require doubling
the visits, because an abortionist could not interview a woman, and perform an
abortion on her, during the same trip.
The law also requires that an abortionist determine whether the woman is
being coerced into the abortion, and imposes a waiting period.
Several of those procedures no longer are being challenged by Planned
Parenthood and they are going into effect in the state. Remaining under
challenge is the counseling requirement along with the three-day waiting
period.
The state recently announced, “Pursuant to the 2011 and 2012 legislation and
the order, beginning July 1, 2012, doctors who perform abortions must assess
each woman for pre-existing risk factors such as coercion and must advise the
woman about the risk of adverse psychological outcomes.”
During the 2012 legislative session, South Dakotans amended several portions
of the 2011 abortion law, and Planned Parenthood followed up with an amended
complaint. Planned Parenthood dropped its challenge to the provisions regarding
coercion and a risk-factor assessment but continued challenging requirements
regarding the referrals to the pregnancy help centers and the three-day
delay.
As a result, the two sides agreed to an order that the coercion and
risk-factor assessment provisions could go into effect right away.
“The remaining challenged provisions – the requirement for involvement of the
pregnancy help centers and the three-day delay – will continue to be enjoined
pending the outcome of discovery, briefing and argument before the district
court,” the state’s announcement said.
According to a statement by the Alpha Center of Sioux Falls and the Black
Hills Pregnancy Center of Rapid City, two abortion alternative centers to which
women may be referred, the decision from Judge Karen Schreier opens the door to
substantial new requirements for abortions.
“Planned Parenthood can no longer have a clerk schedule abortion surgery –
which has been its practice – without a physician first seeing a pregnant
mother, compelling a change in the practices at the Planned Parenthood abortion
facility,” the statement said.
“Only a physician can schedule an abortion, and only after the physician
first performs an assessment, which includes an assessment to determine if the
pregnant mother is being pressured or coerced into having an abortion. Until
now, no such assessments were performed, and no physician saw the pregnant
mother until after the surgery was scheduled and only after she was required to
sign a consent for the abortion and only after she was required to pay for the
abortion,” the statement continued.
In today’s decision over the 2005 law, the appeals court ruling said, “To
succeed … Planned Parenthood must show that the [suicide-abortion link]
disclosure at issue ‘is either untruthful, misleading or not relevant to the
patient’s decision to have an abortion.’”
“The legislature expressly required the disclosure of an ‘increased risk,’
not a causal link. Based on the accepted usage of the term ‘increased risk’ …
the usage of that term … does not imply a disclosure of a causal relationship,”
the court said.
Instead, the section “requires a disclosure simply that the risk of suicide
and suicide ideation is higher among women who abort…”
The judges also said, “We hold that the disclosure facially mandated by the
suicide advisory is truthful.”
“The state legislature, rather than a federal court, is in the best position
to weigh the divergent results and come to a conclusion about the best way to
protect its populace. So long as the means chosen by the state does not impose
an unconstitutional burden on women seeking abortions or their physicians, we
have no basis to interfere,” the court said.
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