S. Dakota doctors must tell women abortions end life, court ruling says

It must now be decided if the law is constitutional.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled that South Dakota can begin enforcing a law requiring doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure ends a human life.

The 7-4 decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sends the case back to U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier of Rapid City for proceedings that will result in a decision on whether the law passed by the 2005 South Dakota Legislature is constitutional.

Schreier had temporarily prevented the law from taking effect while she decides the case. She had ruled that opponents had a fair chance of succeeding in their claim that the law violates doctors’ free-speech rights by forcing them to tell women things the doctors might not believe.

A three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit had agreed with Schreier, but the full court threw out her order. It said Friday that Planned Parenthood, which operates South Dakota’s only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, has not provided enough evidence that it is likely to prevail.

Mimi Liu, a lawyer for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said such rulings generally take about three weeks to take effect. A message seeking comment from South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long was not immediately returned Friday.

The 2005 law would make doctors tell women “that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” Women also would have to be told they have a right to continue a pregnancy and that abortion may cause women psychological harm, including thoughts of suicide.

Planned Parenthood has failed to show that the information to be given to women seeking abortions is untruthful, misleading or irrelevant to the woman’s decision, the appeals court majority said. Taking into account definitions in the law, the information required to be given is biological in nature, so Planned Parenthood has not shown the information is ideological, the decision said.

Harold Cassidy, a lawyer representing two pregnancy counseling centers that support the abortion law, hailed the ruling.

“We think it’s a big victory for the woman obviously to be given accurate information in order to make a decision not only for the child, but also for herself,” Cassidy said.