Supreme Court Declines to Hear Kentucky Abortion Ultrasound Law
ACLU complained, but the mother has the option to not look at the ultrasound and ask the doctor to mute the heartbeat audio.
The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal to the Kentucky Ultrasound Informed Consent Act, which requires “doctors to perform ultrasounds and show and describe fetal images to patients before abortions, as well as play an audible heartbeat of the fetus.”
Their decision means the law will stay in place.
The ACLU challenged the law on behalf of EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, KY, which is the state’s last abortion clinic.
The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law:
“As a First Amendment matter, there is nothing suspect with a State’s requiring a doctor, before performing an abortion, to make truthful, non-misleading factual disclosures, relevant to informed consent, even if those disclosures relate to unborn life and have the effect of persuading the patient not to have an abortion,” the appeals court held in its ruling.
Circuit Judge John K. Bush wrote the information from the ultrasound to the mother gives her a “greater knowledge of the unborn life inside her,” which may change the mother’s mind. He said this information “does not render it suspect under the First Amendment.”
Bush explained that if these laws “required doctors to give information that is ‘truthful, non-misleading, and relevant to an abortion,’ they do not violate the doctor’s First Amendment rights.”
The ACLU complained that the Supreme Court “has rubber-stamped extreme political interference in the doctor-patient relationship.” It believes the law is “unconstitutional.”
However, Catholic News Agency noted “the mother would have the option of refusing to look at the ultrasound image and requesting that the audio of the baby’s heartbeat be muted.”
The Catholic Association applauded the fact that the law will stand:
“Today the Supreme Court let Kentucky’s informed consent law stand – a move that affirms common sense, transparency, and the democratic process,” stated Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, legal advisor for The Catholic Association. “Rather than keep women in the dark, Kentucky requires all medical professionals, (including abortionists) to disclose vital information related to a woman’s pregnancy and her developing child. Women deserve to know all the facts before making such a consequential decision.”
GREAT NEWS!
The Supreme Court just rejected the @ACLU ‘s request to challenge and overturn Kentucky’s ultrasound law.
This is another pro-life law that will be allowed to stand and will help protect preborn babies from abortion.
— Students for Life (@StudentsforLife) December 9, 2019
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Comments
You get a heartbeat long before you get a heart, not that it matters. The point where society will agree about abortion is when there’s something cute there, and it’s a technological race to see at what point something cute can be displayed.
Heartbeat is somewhat word-fakery so probably not a good idea. You may have it even before you discover you’re pregnant, which is too soon.
Taking care of something cute is the societal instinct you want to preserve. It’s the reason babies grow up. But find something actually cute.
You don’t have to know you’re pregnant to be pregnant. You’re suggesting there’s an arbitrary point where “abortion is OK” becomes “abortion is not OK”. Pro-life is pro-life. Not pro-cute life.
That’s the dogmatic pro-life position and it won’t get a majority. Souls lined up and God inserts the next one into the next fertilized egg, like a Woody Allen comedy.
The politics will eventually work out, once people get to vote on it, that the point of cuteness is where society has a relation to the fetus, and that’s when you can get enough votes to say it’s cute and you have to protect it.
Another reason society might want to ban abortion is to get the birthrate up. Women acquire an obligation to pay back in lieu of being subject to the draft.
LOL…
look theres a shark. ima gonna jump it and see who it pisses off…
Hallelujah!!! Bless those Kentuckians Pea-Pickin hearts!!