Planned Parenthood Sues to Stop Women From Seeing Ultrasounds of Their Babies Before Abortion

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 23, 2020   |   6:12PM   |   Des Moines, IA

Planned Parenthood is not content to save babies and the abortion chain does not trust women to make an informed decision about an abortion before going through with it.

The abortion business is criticizing an Iowa bill that ensures abortion facilities give women the opportunity to see their unborn babies on an ultrasound and hear their baby’s heartbeat at least 24 hours prior to the abortion. In addition, Iowa requires abortion facilities to provide women with information about abortion risks and resources available for parenting and adoption, and to confirm in writing that women received it.

The is criticizing an Iowa bill that ensures abortion facilities give women the opportunity to see their unborn babies on an ultrasound and hear their baby’s heartbeat at least 24 hours prior to the abortion. In addition, Iowa requires abortion facilities to provide women with information about abortion risks and resources available for parenting and adoption, and to confirm in writing that women received it.

The Iowa legislature passed the pro-life waiting period bill on Sunday, and today it filed a legal challenge.

Here’s more:

The group’s lawsuit in Johnson County District Court seeks an injunction against a bill legislators passed June 14, which says a woman could not have an abortion for at least 24 hours after an initial appointment. At that appointment, the woman would have to be given the opportunity to view an ultrasound scan of the fetus and information about abortion and other options, including adoption.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland announced Tuesday that it had filed suit to block the July 1 implementation of the bill. Gov. Kim Reynolds has not yet signed the bill, but she is a strong opponent of abortion.

Erin Davison-Rippey, Planned Parenthood’s Iowa executive director, said the waiting period would force women to go to an extra appointment before receiving an abortion. That is medically unnecessary and could take several extra days or even weeks, she said in a news conference Tuesday.

Planned Parenthood filed the lawsuit with the ACLU of Iowa. The ACLU’s legal director, Rita Bettis Austen, said that besides setting up unconstitutional barriers to abortion, the bill was rushed through the Legislature illegally by being tacked on to an unrelated bill the night before lawmakers adjourned for the year.

Rep. Sandy Salmon, a Janesville Republican who co-sponsored the measure, denied that it was passed illegally.

“I believe we followed all the rules we normally follow,” she said in an interview Tuesday.

Salmon said she was disappointed but not surprised that Planned Parenthood had filed suit against the measure.

“We hoped that the 24-hour waiting period would give a woman a chance to let her baby live,” she said.

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Governor Reynolds, who is pro-life, has appointed four Supreme Court justices since 2018 giving pro-life advocates hope the state Supreme Court is more open to pro-life laws.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld similar legislation in the past.

“We always look for pathways that we can advance the pro-life movement,” said House Human Resource Committee Chairwoman Shannon Lundgren, R-Peosta, Sioux City Journal reports. “24 hours is not an unreasonable amount of time to think about a decision that impacts more than just one life.”

Informed consent laws help protect unborn babies from abortion, and the abortion industry knows it. Research indicates that when women see ultrasound images of their unborn babies, they are more likely to choose life. A 2017 study out of the University of California San Francisco also suggests that some women do change their minds about abortion as a result of informed consent laws.

A majority of states require a waiting period prior to an abortion and 35 require informed consent counseling, which typically includes facts about an unborn baby’s development, the risks of abortion and alternatives to abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute.