On July 3rd, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in a 7-4 decision, allowed South Dakota to begin enforcing a state law that requires abortion providers to tell women, in writing, that the abortion procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” In Planned Parenthood v. Rounds, the Court vacated a temporary injunction that had been issued by the trial court, which had blocked the law from going into effect.The opinion addresses the important issue of whether South Dakota can enforce its 2005 informed consent law while the constitutionality of its requirements is litigated in court. Much of the opinion discusses whether the statement, “abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” is truthful, not misleading and relevant to women’s decisions to obtain abortions. The majority found that Planned Parenthood had “submitted no evidence” that this statement was false, misleading, or irrelevant.
Planned Parenthood and abortion activists have tried to deny the fact that abortion kills a separate human being. Denial of this fact was part of a national strategy to create a culture of abortion for the entire nation, according to sworn testimony of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws (NARAL). Today, a majority of the judges on the Eighth Circuit have clearly and decisively declared that South Dakota need not deny the truth.
Harold Cassidy, chief counsel for the two crisis pregnancy centers which intervened in the case, said: “Planned Parenthood, in a shocking, and perhaps perverse logic, argued that abortion doctors were harmed by being required to tell women the truth, and this supposed harm outweighed the damage to pregnant mothers who lost their children because of these doctors’ failure to make material disclosures.” The informed consent law is designed to guard against the negligence and misrepresentations by providers, since many women would not obtain abortions if properly informed.
The South Dakota law is designed to provide basic information necessary for a pregnant mother to make an informed decision before she gives up her fundamental rights. In the process, it allows her to apply her own personal, moral, and ethical values to the facts once they are disclosed. This fall, the people of South Dakota will vote on a statewide initiative that will ban abortion except in the case where the mother’s life is threatened or in the rare case of rape or incest. This voter initiative will be a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which sanctioned abortion through all nine months of pregnancy on January 22, 1973.
Mathew D. Staver, Founder of Liberty Counsel and Dean of Liberty University School of Law, commented: “Planned Parenthood wants to practice evil while pretending it does not exist. Planned Parenthood is founded on a lie and it seeks to deceive women into thinking that abortion is good for them and that it does not involve a separate human being. When the truth about abortion is known, very few women will choose to kill their children.”
July 8th, 2008 at 4:31 am
Praise God! The truth will set them free.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:05 am
This is not right.
The idea that an unborn is a whole and separate human being is a spiritual determination, not a medical one. Having a doctor say it to the patients might lead them to believe that medical science can prove it, and it can’t. This isn’t informing women; it is tricking them.
It wouldn’t be out of line to have someone say, “It is the opinion of the State of South Dakota that an abortion kills a whole, unique and living human being,” or “It is the conclusion of the State of South Dakota that an abortion kills a whole, unique and living human being.” Either of those statements would be 1. true and 2. within the purview of a state legislature.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Excuse me, DRF? Whether speaking from the standpoint of genetics or embryology, your statements are at best on shaky ground. There are numerous vertebrate species where the zygote is CLEARLY a completely separate entity from its parents. That offspring of our species must develop within the mother’s body for some of its life does not change the fact that it is an entirely distinct being.
Furthermore, the embryo, with its placenta, amniotic sac, yolk sac, et cetera, is genetically distinct from the mother. They are part of the child which it discards after birth.
Birth was in fact chosen arbitrarily as the developmental stage which divides the children we may legally slay for any reason, or no reason at all, from those which we may not. The time is coming (and in some places may already now be) when the developmental stage which ends the term of legal infanticide is weaning, puberty, or full growth.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:26 am
The baby’s DNA is unique from the mother’s at his creation(fertilization). That, DRF, science has proved. Science has also proved, via Mitochondrial DNA, that all human beings are descendants of the same original parents. If all research is honest, science will never contradict God’s Truth.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:40 am
DRF: What nonsense–the court accepts, as finding of fact, that each human being has his or her own unique DNA, that holds elements in common with the mother (and the father) but is distinct from both. That is: separate.
Whole, meaning no parts added or subtracted from outside, is also self evident — all that is added is nourishment. It has nothing to do with a “spiritual determination,” whatever that is (other than an attempt to bypass the facts).
July 8th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Arkanabar - careful limiting that to full growth. I live in Oregon where the life of grown adults can be ended, technically only by oneself in Physician Assisted Suicide. The next step is to allow others to intervene “legally” by proxy decision. Seems logical next step, imagine the story “If my Mother wasn’t suffering from Alzheimer’s she would choose to die and not live like this. It would be allowed if she could speak, allow me to speak for her.” Ironic the person who brings us life and provides for us in the early years, we rush so quickly to extinquish their lives when they “burden” us.
If that isn’t enough Washington doesn’t want to be out done and is trying to pass a law allowing Physician Assisted Suicide also. I believe it is to be on the November ballot.
Unless one can be productive to society, without creating unwanted burden on another, then the life one has is of no value and should be ended. So say the culture of death.
A culture we all are vulnerable to! That is why we must stand as one and speak boldly for progress like this and defend the 5th Commandment “You shall not murder!”
July 8th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Medically:
DRF is dead wrong. Any biology book will tell you that the mammalian life cycle begins when the egg cell is fertilized and ends when the cellular functions of a given being cease.
I find it interesting that the word “person” is chosen. From a psychological / philosophical/ legal sense it is not a strait forward word to define.
One way to define a person is when “en-soulment” occurs , but that requires a religious argument.
From a legal standpoint a person is any entity defined as such under the law. Because parents have custody rites even over frozen embryos ( case law supports this.) they certainly meet the definition there.
What can be known scientifically is when a human life cycle begins.
There can be no argument over that. It is also entirely impossible to present any evidence without a religious argument that the human person and the entity which exists through out the human life cycle are not one and the same.
The fact that the smoke screen was kept in place for so long within the public eye is a testimony to nothing less then the power of the diabolical and the human propensity to believe what they want rather then what is true.
July 8th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
When a person commits a crime against a pregnant woman, let’s say in a drunk driving case, be charged with 2 counts of murder.. 1 if the woman dies and 1 for the unborn child? If so then DRF is wrong .. the courts seem to already established that fact.