The lone abortion center in South Dakota appears as if it is still not doing abortions following the implementation of a new law a week and a half ago. Rather than tell women abortion kills children and has numerous risks, Planned Parenthood closed its doors to women wanting abortions.
-- From "Women Seeking Abortion Must Be Told About 'Unique Living Human Being'" by Peter Slevin, Washington Post Staff Writer 7/20/08
In a victory for antiabortion forces, doctors in South Dakota are now required to tell a woman seeking an abortion that the procedure "will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique living human being."
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit last week lifted a preliminary injunction that prevented the language from taking effect. A spokesman for Planned Parenthood, which runs the state's only abortion clinic, said doctors will begin reciting the script to patients as early as this week.
Antiabortion forces in South Dakota have been trying for years to halt the procedure and to build a winnable challenge to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
"The law is one more terrible, terrible barrier," said Sarah Stoesz, president of the regional Planned Parenthood office. She described the rules as "unprecedented interference in the doctor-patient relationship and unprecedented interference in a woman's life."
Mailee Smith, staff counsel at Chicago-based Americans United for Life, praised the regulations. "We do think it's a good law, because it does provide a woman with the broadest spectrum of information," she said.
-- From "South Dakota Abortion Center Apparently Still Not Doing Abortions With New Law" by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor 7/29/08
Normally Planned Parenthood flies in an abortion practitioner from Minnesota because no one locally in South Dakota will do abortions.
[Dr. Allen Unruh, a leading pro-life advocate who works with Alpha Pregnancy Center,] told the Catholic News Agency yesterday that it appears the abortion practitioner has not yet come and that no abortions have been done at the center, though it has seen non-abortion customers.
"We were the first state that ever made Planned Parenthood put up a closed sign," he said.
Minnesota-based Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kathi Di Nicola said last week that abortions never stopped at the center, but Unruh told CNA he thinks they have, at least temporarily.
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