South Dakota’s informed consent law

The post below on the 8th Circuit Court’s decision to open the hearing again on South Dakota’s informed consent law prompted a note from Chad that should be looked at here.

The “Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Law”, which had a majority of statewide support, lost by a narrow margin in the November election because of a successful campaign of disinformation by Planned Parenthood and NARAL. It made citizens of South Dakota question what they thought they knew, and planted falsehoods about that law, the abortion task force report, and the informed consent law in that state.

Chad writes that “the reason the informed consent law in South Dakota is being challenged is because it requires information to be given to patients that isn’t backed up by medical fact.” That’s absolutely untrue. In fact, it’s the reverse. Medical fact refutes the abortionist’s claim that the woman is only carrying “a blob of tissue” when she asks about the procedure. The informed consent called for in HB 1166 is fully grounded in the most complete and accurate language of any such consent in the country — and there isn’t much information being given in abortion clinics in the country. It’s being challenged because the abortionists and their clinics don’t want to have to give that information to women.

This post back before the election more thoroughly explains some specifics on that South Dakota law. Here are a few snips from it, citing South Dakota legislation:

During the 2005 legislative session, the South Dakota Legislature passed HB 1166 that expressly found that “all abortions, whether surgically or chemically induced, terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

The Act amends SDCL 34-23A-10.1 to require a physician to disclose in writing to a pregnant mother “that the aobrtion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

“Human being” is used in the biological sense as a whole member of the species Homo sapiens (SDCL 34-23A-1(4)).

That’s just basic biology and human embryology, irrefutable medical facts. They wanted women to have the basic knowledge to make an informed choice.

Here’s a snip from LifeNews in that post:

The modifications, approved by the state legislature in 2005, would have abortion practitioners tell women that abortions end a human life and come with a plethora of medical and psychological problems.

But Planned Parenthood claimed that would infringe on the free speech rights of abortion practitioners by making them tell women the truth about abortion’s problems.

Here’s a follow-up post that explains the facts and the challenges in more detail. These snips from the legal statement for the crisis pregnancy centers summarize:

The essential purpose of the Informed Consent Statute is to benefit the pregnant mothers and to protect their own constitutionally protected interest in their relationships with their children, their interest in making decisions for their children, and their interests in their own health. The law is intended to protect the women against an abortion clinic or Planned Parenthood’s out of state doctor who may devalue those interests and impose their own personal values upon the women. The statute was designed to help preserve the women’s right to make an informed and voluntary choice concerning some of a woman’s most important liberty rights in all of life.

This law still left the ‘voluntary choice’ in there, but required that it be informed.

The act…is designed to provide basic informatioin 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, and to guard against others who would impose their views upon the women.

Now here’s the situation as it was before the informed consent law was written, and as it still is while that law is under an injunction:

If a woman calls Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls inquiring about an abortion, an employee with no medical training schedules the surgical procedure. When the woman arrives, she is required to sign a consent to an abortion and pay for it before receiving any counseling. When she sees a “patient educator” she receives no information about the child, no information about fetal development, or what it is that is being removed. The “educators” all admit they know nothing (or little) about human embryology, human genetics or molecular biology. Some of them do not know when an embryo’s heart first starts to beat or how many chromosomes the human embryo has. In many cases, women cry during the session with the “educator,” but the doctors do the abortion anyway. There is no true patient-physician relationship and the doctor most often only sees the woman for the four to seven minutes it takes to perform the surgery scheduled by the lay person who takes the woman’s call.

The medial and psychological problems this caused were widely documented in the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion report. Chad challenges the credibility of that report and anyone who cites it. He says: “The voters of South Dakota rejected its findings last year and doctors across the state have denounced it as a piece of propaganda.”

Actually, the voters of South Dakota never questioned the task force report, and several months before the November election the state was canvassed and about 87 percent of the population favored the life protection law (the abortion ban). Over the summer months into the Fall, Planned Parenthood and NARAL campaigned against the law claiming that it didn’t have a rape and incest exception, which it did.

And about those doctors, there are no abortion doctors in South Dakota, and only one clinic. The abortionist comes in from Minnesota to do the abortions and leaves. I’d be interested in seeing what Chad cites as the reference that “doctors across the state have denounced it as a piece of propaganda.” Some of the MSM reporting I saw on this was grossly misleading, so maybe they gave that impression. I’ve been working with the folks in South Dakota for over a year now, staying on top of the information and asking lots of questions.

That’s the only way to get to the truth. I wonder if Chad actually read that task force report. It has some of the testimony of abortion clinic personnel and the head of Planned Parenthood in South Dakota, along with the conclusions of hearing the testimony of about 2,000 post-abortive women. Here’s the legislature’s explanation of how it went:

The Task Force heard live testimony of approximately fifty-five witnesses, including thirty-two experts, and considered the written reports and testimony from another fifteen experts. In order to achieve a balanced viewpoint and obtain as much information from diverse points of view as possible, live testimony was divided almost equally between witnesses who support the position that abortion is harmful to women and should be illegal and those who think it should be legal.

The Task Force also received approximately 3,500 pages of written materials, studies, reports and testimony, all of which were made part of the record and have been reviewed and consdiered by the Task Force in reaching its findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

It’s compelling reading. But to draw your own conclusions, read it yourself.