SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A federal court ruled Thursday that portions of South Dakota’s informed consent law requiring doctors to tell women contemplating abortion that they are terminating a human life are constitutional. But the judge struck down a portion requiring doctors to inform women that they are terminating a legally protected relationship with an unborn human being on the basis that the preborn are not “persons.” Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund authored and filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending the law on behalf of the Family Research Council.
“A woman’s life is worth more than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line, so we’re pleased the abortion industry failed in its attempt to strike down this law,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden. “We agree with the decision of the court to allow South Dakota women to be informed of the indisputable fact that her baby is a human being. We find it incredible, however, for the court to determine that the law cannot acknowledge that a ‘pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being’ because some human beings are somehow not ‘persons.’”
“The court ruled that a woman has more of a relationship with the abortionist than her preborn baby. All human beings are persons,” said Aden.
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 suit to block implementation of the law. In June 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled 7-4 to lift a lower court injunction against the law and returned the case to district court for further proceedings.
In her decision, Judge Karen Schreier of the U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota, Southern Division, wrote, “The court finds that before performing abortions, the physician must inform the patient ‘[t]hat the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.’” She added, however, that “in the legal context, a pregnant mother cannot have a ‘relationship’ with a ‘human being,’ as that word is defined in the statute.”
ADF-allied attorney Harold Cassidy represented a group of pregnancy centers that successfully intervened in the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, to protect the interest of women. Cassidy plans to appeal to the 8th Circuit on the portions of the law struck down by the court.
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of strategy, training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.