South Dakota’s new abortion law

Here’s the latest installment in shitty laws that hurt women, coz Lord knows we have so many of them now. The Eighth Circuit Court has lifted an injunction filed by Planned Parenthood against a 2005 law which requires doctors to inform patients seeking an abortion that the procedure would “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” In addition, the doctor must tell the patient she shares a “constitutionally protected” relationship with her “unborn child” and that abortion raises the risk of depression and suicide.

According to Sarah Stoesz, CEO of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota-

…[We] challenged the 2005 law because it violated the constitutional rights of doctors and patients by forcing doctors to give ideologically charged, nonscientific and inaccurate messages to their patients.

The violation of First Amendment rights is definitely a large part of this outrageous law. But, if we’ve learned anything about the Courts, they’re more willing to side with the anti-choicers than with us on this matter. Just today, the 9th Circuit Court ruled that a truck displaying graphic pictures of aborted fetuses near a middle school was protected by the Constitution.

However, there are even more disturbing aspects of this law and the implications it has for women’s rights nationwide. The entire premise of this case is based on the faulty notion that an embryo is somehow a “person,” an individual vested with certain inalienable rights. However, as reproductive rights groups and feminists have argued, this argument is troublesome. If we were to indeed consider that life begins at conception, this poses a few problems. For one, should women be prosecuted for having an abortion? What about their doctors? After all, if life begins at conception, an abortion would amount to murder. Going further, would we have to formulate new policies regarding the birth rate and death rate? So, really, it’s easy to just say that life begins at conception without thinking about the legal implications.

Looking through the decision, I am also struck by the paternalistic tone of the Court’s opinion. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that the judiciary has feigned concern for women. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that banned “partial birth” abortions. The Court’s opinion, written by Justice Kennedy, was breathtaking in its sheer arrogance and condescension. Disturbingly, the 8th Circuit Court’s opinion quotes the SCOTUS ruling extensively-

Whether to have an abortion requires a difficult and painful moral decision. While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.

Apparently, Justice Kennedy, an old dude who has never faced the difficult decision to have an abortion is somehow an expert on what women go through during this period. And, by highlighting Kennedy’s writings in their opinion, the 8th Circuit Court simply validates an archaic notion of reproductive rights and women as wombs.

 

Anna and I actually traveled to South Dakota in 2006 to campaign against a statewide referendum that would ban all abortions, even in the case of rape and incest. At the time, I was convinced that the biggest hurdle towards the recognition of reproductive rights was Christian groups- after all, they were better organized and funded than us. Little did I know that the Courts would be more than willing to screw with women, as well.

 

-Indira