Opinion Piece Examines S.D. Abortion Providers' Dilemma In Reading 'Script' Mandated By State Law

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 22 Aug 2008 - 10:00 PDT

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A 2005 South Dakota state law mandating that physicians read a state-approved "script" to women seeking abortions "says it's about informed consent," Slate's Emily Bazelon writes in an opinion piece, but suggests that "[m]isinformed consent" might be more accurate. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently lifted a temporary injunction that had prevented the law from going into effect.

According to Bazelon, the law requires physicians to describe "all known medical risks to women seeking abortion[s]" including "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide." In addition, physicians must give patients a written statement telling them that "the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being" and that patients have "an existing relationship with that unborn human being" that is protected by the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the state, Bazelon writes. According to Bazelon, the statement linking abortion to increased risk of suicide "isn't supported by reliable medical evidence." A recent American Psychological Association report on mental health and abortion found that although women who choose to terminate unintended pregnancies might have feelings of grief and loss, the relative risk of mental health conditions is no greater if they have a single abortion than if they carry the pregnancy to term. Although the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey said that states can require women to receive "truthful, nonmisleading information" about abortion, Bazelon writes that "South Dakota's law has an entirely different effect: To warn women about an unproven heightened risk of suicide" rather than speak the truth to them.

According to Bazelon, it has fallen to Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, which runs South Dakota's only abortion clinic, to "figure out how to follow these directives." She writes that while the organization does not want to place physicians in danger of violating the law, physicians also have an ethical responsibility to give patients accurate medical information. Medical ethics seems to support physicians informing their patients of medical evidence if they think the mandatory statement would mislead patients, Bazelon writes, adding that physicians' First Amendment rights also should permit them to do so.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America lawyer Roger Evans, declined to discuss specifically what their doctors are now saying to patients but added, "Our position is that so long as we provide the information that's mandated by the statute, we're free to say anything else we want to say so long as we don't dispute objective scientific facts." Bazelon writes that South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long (R) has not seen or signed off on language Planned Parenthood has come up with in interpreting the statute and the court ruling, and the "discussions haven't even gotten off the ground." In addition, Planned Parenthood's challenge to the law is back in court since no court has yet ruled on the suicide provision, according to Bazelon.

The opinion piece concludes, "It's a truism that when science and politics tangle, facts often don't much matter. At the moment, women getting abortions in South Dakota are caught in that snarl" (Bazelon, Slate, 8/19).

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