Planned Parenthood loses: Court upholds South Dakota’s abortion suicide advisory
South Dakota is one of five states with only one abortion clinic remaining: Planned Parenthood of Sioux Falls.
So the stakes are higher than ever each time the predominantly pro-life South Dakota legislature passes a law regulating and/or restricting abortion.
In 2005 it passed a detailed informed consent statute Planned Parenthood has been battling ever since.
Yesterday Planned Parenthood lost its fourth protracted complaint against the law, this one on the point that abortion places a mother at “increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide.” According to the 27-page majority opinion:
The statute does not require the physician to disclose that a causal link between abortion and suicide has been proved. The disclosure is truthful, as evidenced by a multitude of studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals that found an increased risk of suicide for women who had received abortions compared to women who gave birth, miscarried, or never became pregnant.
Various studies found this correlation to hold even when controlling for the effects of other potential causal factors for suicide, including pre-existing depression, anxiety, suicide ideation, childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, child neuroticism, and low self-esteem.
Planned Parenthood: Aborting mothers already crazy
According to ABC News:
Planned Parenthood relied on another study to argue its belief that certain underlying factors, such as mental health issues, predispose women to have both unwanted pregnancies and suicidal tendencies.
Planned Parenthood loses again
About the latest in a long line of pro-life court decisions re: South Dakota’s informed consent law, attorney Harold Cassidy, who represented Alpha Center, a pregnancy resource center, in the case, stated:
This victory represents the fourth separate decision of the Eighth 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. 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.”
… Throughout the legislative processes, over the past eight years, and all during the pending of this litigation… Planned Parenthood has been proven completely wrong on every issue in the case….
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.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Wow, that is wonderful news!!
Proud to be a South Dakotan!
[...] Jill Stanek, por Jill [...]
Bush opposed South Dakota’s 2006 total abortion ban; because as he told ABC News he supports killing some kids. ProlifeProfiles.com/george-bush
What do Bush’s shortcomings have to do with the informed consent law being discussed here?
This is awesome news! I am so proud of South Dakota and her awesome people! They are standing up for the rights of women to know what abortion ACTUALLY is – as well as the rights of a child who doesn’t have a voice yet. Keep on standing strong.