A federal judge upheld part of a South Dakota law that requires women to be told abortion ends a human life, but struck down disclosures that the procedure increases the likelihood of suicide and that they have an existing relationship with the fetus.
U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier's decision Thursday ends a lawsuit that Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota filed in response to a 2005 informed consent law that required several disclosures to women seeking an abortion.
She sided with the state in ruling that doctors must make the biological disclosure "that the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being."
But Schreier said doctors can provide more information than the language in the statute, including that the term can be used in a biological sense and not ideological.
Schreier ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood by concluding that pregnant women do not need to be told abortion increases the likelihood of suicide or that they have an existing relationship with the fetus.
Both sides claimed victory and said they will weigh whether to appeal the issues they lost.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
