Court considers South Dakota law on abortion consent

A lower court blocked the statute's enforcement because it forces doctors to hew to the state's position that a fetus is a human being.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. May 22/29, 2006.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April heard oral arguments in a case debating when life begins.

The challenge is over a South Dakota law that requires physicians to inform women seeking an abortion that the procedure would "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being" and that the woman has a relationship with the unborn child. The measure also requires doctors to inform women of abortion's medical risks, including psychological effects, and of alternatives, such as adoption.

Nearly 30 states have laws mandating that women seeking an abortion receive specific information about the procedure. South Dakota's act, however, is the only one requiring doctors to impart information about what constitutes a living being, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion legislation and supports abortion rights.

Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota filed the lawsuit challenging the statute last year. "This is a law that puts physicians in the position of having to indoctrinate a woman as to the state's philosophical view about the organism developing in her body and goes way beyond what the state can compel as reasonable medical treatment," said Roger Evans, senior director for public policy litigation for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.