Lawyers Spar Over Abortion Law
A lawyer for abortion opponents told a federal appeals court yesterday than an injunction blocking an abortion warning law is interfering with the rights of pregnant women in South Dakota.
The women are losing their “rights to a relationship with their children,” said Harold Cassidy, chief counsel for anti-abortion centers in two South Dakota cities, according to a story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “They’re losing their children every single week.”
The 2005 law requires abortion providers to tell patients that the procedure will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”
Tim Branson, a Planned Parenthood lawyer, countered in oral arguments that the law is based on misleading information and “unrings the bell” of liberty for women, according to the newspaper.
The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is sitting en banc to reconsider an injunction blocking the law from taking effect.
Here is an earlier blog post on the case.
