South Dakota Abortion Center Apparently Still Not Doing Abortions With New Law

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jul 29, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

South Dakota Abortion Center Apparently Still Not Doing Abortions With New Law

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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 29
, 2008

Sioux Falls, SD (LifeNews.com) — 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.

As LifeNews.com was first to report last week, Monday was the first day for abortions at the Planned Parenthood abortion center but women who went for abortions were turned away.

Dr. Allen Unruh, a leading pro-life advocate who works with Alpha Pregnancy Center, told LifeNews.com that it appeared Planned Parenthood did not call women with abortion appointments.

Instead, they went to the abortion facility and found it closed to them.

Normally Planned Parenthood flies in an abortion practitioner from Minnesota because no one locally in South Dakota will do abortions.

Unruh 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.

“Why didn’t the abortionists fly in on that day? They cannot deny that they had a closed sign there last Monday," he said.

Di Nicola had previously told AP that it would comply with the law.

"We will do what the law says," Di Nicola said. "[B]ut clearly the law is extreme and flawed and wrong."

The state law, which the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld recently, requires abortion practitioners to inform every woman that she is terminating the life of a human being.

It requires giving her information about the mental health complications such as a high risk of depression and suicide and physical problems like hemorrhage, infection, premature births of subsequent pregnancies, and infertility.

The woman considering the abortion receives a chance to sign in writing that she received the information and abortion practitioners who don’t comply face losing their medical license, two years in prison and a possible medical malpractice lawsuit.

 

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