Real freedom is information

No matter what the “Freedom of Choice Act” calls itself, it’s restrictive to historic proportions.

Choice can only be made with information, and people in South Dakota have been working for years to make it available by law, to women considering abortion. How else can they know what the choices are, for goodness sake?

Despite setbacks by abortion forces fighting ‘informed consent’ law, the people behind the Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Law are back in court.

A South Dakota federal judge has received what are likely to be the last legal papers from attorneys for the state to rule on an abortion information law. The measure requires abortion practitioners to tell women that an abortion will destroy a human life of an unborn child.

The state legislature approved modifications to the informed consent law in 2005 with that instruction and information on the plethora of medical and psychological problems associated with abortion.

But Planned Parenthood, which runs the only abortion business in the state in Sioux Falls, claimed making them tell women the truth about abortion’s problems would infringe on the free speech rights of abortion practitioners and filed suit against the law.

Remember that? The district judge issued an injunction against the informed consent law, deciding the rights of the abortionist not to tell women the truth trumped the rights of the women to know, and to decide for themselves and their unborn children what to do.

Now, that same judge, U.S. 8th Circuit Court Judge Karen Schreier – who sided with Planned Parenthood last time - will decide whether the informed consent law is constitutional.

Assistant Attorney General John Guhin defended the law during the hearing before the appeals court.

“The Legislature became convinced women are not getting information about the unborn life within them,” he said at the time.

“The really sad part is that it might be a husband, boyfriend, even parents” who pressured a woman to have an abortion and the state legislature wanted women to know they have a right to keep the baby, he added.

However, Planned Parenthood lawyer Tim Branson called the information “highly misleading and calculated to mislead.”

Judge Raymond Gruender appeared to side with the state and questioned Planned Parenthood, asking “What part of it is untruthful?”

Perfect question. Did they answer?